Mercedes crash victim was phone, laptops dealer

Kiprono Koech, the man who died in a road accident on Lang’ata Road on Sunday morning, had recently celebrated his 28th birthday.

To his close friends and relatives, Koech was always a jovial man. The friends, who asked not to be named, said they learnt of the tragic accident through social media.

They still cannot understand how he ended up with the “big German machine” and why he chose to drive at high speed. One of his cousins said he even didn’t know when he started drinking.

Koech, according to the cousin, operated a small online business selling laptops and mobile phones.

Before he met his death, the man from Litein in Kericho County had spent the evening with another friend identified as David Ronoh, the owner of the Mercedes Benz, KCX 734B, 350 model.

Mr Ronoh was meeting another friend who was due to fly out of the country the following day.

The two then left 1824 club on Lang’ata Road before Koech drove back and continued drinking.

In the wee hours of Sunday, he left the club and drove towards the T-Mall roundabout but stopped at Weston Hotel. At the gate of the hotel, the workers asked him whether he needed assistance but he said he was okay and sped off.

“We asked him if he needed any assistance from us, he declined and continued with his journey. We later learnt that he was involved in a fatal accident along the same route,” a statement from the hotel read.

According to the police, Mr Koech then drove downhill towards the roundabout and headed back towards Lang’ata before he crashed near Sunshine Secondary School.

Lang’ata deputy police boss John Samburumo said the driver, who was not identified at first, was driving at high speed. He lost control and hit trees lining the road and landed on a perimeter wall.

The accident was captured by many who shared it on social media. The mangled wreckage of the car was shocking.

The 7.24 am rash was also captured on CCTV and the video shows the vehicle crashing into the trees before being engulfed in smoke.

His family members were not aware until later in the day when they were informed of his death. A cousin visited the accident scene after seeing pictures on social media.

A postmortem examination found that he had multiple fractures and was bleeding in the brain.

The family later removed his body from City Mortuary to Siloam in Kericho ahead of the burial on Saturday.

Statistics from NTSA indicates that 3,409 people lost their lives on the roads by December 19 last year compared to 3,004 who died in 2018. This was a 13 percent rise in the fatalities. Of the deaths, 325 were drivers.