A ‘free’ but risky ride 

To save money, these children take a free but very dangerous ride. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Apparently a motorist attempting to overtake the Canter had misjudged the distance, and while trying to switch back into the lane, hit the side of the truck. The impact threw Thande off the road.
  • Luckily, the injuries were minimal -a bruised knee and right arm.
  • It has been two years since the incident and Thande has recovered fully, but any time he looks at the scar on his knee, he is reminded of his close shave with death.

The warning messages  on the rear doors or mud-guards of trucks vary in calligraphy, font colour and spirit, part humour, part grave: “Keep off!” “Hang and risk death!” “Want to die? Hang!” But the denominator is usually the same: What you are attempting appears convenient right now, even fun, but the danger lurks ahead, and the possibility  of dying in very real.  There is always a price for everything.

Samson Thande had seen the messages so often, he could   quote them from memory. But the words were distant, cursory. He had paid them some mind, but then. any careful truck owner wary of litigation would warn off people from hanging on the door, he reasoned. Plus,

“When one has made up his mind that there is a faster, cheaper way to do something, little can persuade him to back off,” he says.

On the day that everything changed, Thande, a cobbler waited at his usual base down the road of a few miles outside Limuru town on the Naivasha-Nakuru Higheay.

He had done it several times before on his way to work at Kinare;  he would ride his bicycle down the road, stop when the curve muscles announced the ascent of the hill, wait and grab the side railing or the hinge bar of a passing truck.

Soon, a Mitsubishi Canter truck appeared and Thande grabbed the latch. The small lorry laboured up the hill and then, as it began the descent down the road, the driver shifted the vehicle to free gear.

 “I don’t remember much, other than being slammed onto the side of the road, hitting the ground,” says Thande, 41.

Apparently a motorist attempting to overtake the Canter had misjudged the distance, and while trying to switch back into the lane, hit the side of the truck. The impact threw Thande off the road.

Luckily, the injuries were minimal -a bruised knee and right arm. It has been two years since the incident and Thande has recovered fully, but any time he looks at the scar on his knee, he is reminded of his close shave with death.

Like Thande, tens of cyclists, and even pedestrians, court danger daily on the country’s highways through skitching-the practice of a cyclist hitching onto the back door, or rail of a moving truck, commonly known as “hanging”. 

RISK NOT WORTH TROUBLE

The most notorious of the main thoroughfares is the Naivasha-Nakuru Highway, a road teeming with trucks, most of them ferrying cabbage, potatoes and other vegetables from farms in Kinangop, and one particularly inviting for cyclists because of its long stretches of steep climbing lanes.

“One wonders if the risk is worth the trouble,” says Salim Ali, a long-distance trucker. Mutua has made a quick stop near Kijabe town, pulling over the shoulder to buy a cob of roast maize sold throughout the year.

“I discovered that  nothing, not even imminent death, will dissuade cyclists from hanging.” Tired of having to stop and go round the lorry to berate a heedless cyclist, Mutua finally rigged the back of his lorry with a barbed. electric-fence like wire.

“They don’t want to get cut,” he laughed.

Apart from a possible broadside or worse, a repeat rider is at risk of long-term health problems from inhaling exhaust fumes.

The hospitals DN2 contacted couldn’t confirm fatalities resulting from skitching-related incidents.

“The likelihood is rare, despite the dangers one would expect,” said a staff member at AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital.

THE OTHER COIN

Not everyone sees the devil in skitching, also known as “hitching”.

David Kinjah is a professional cyclist who also heads Safari Simbaz, an outfit of community of professional riders, which, apart from organising races, also offers mentorship to young cycling enthusiasts. Kinjah, a veteran rider, sees foremost an attitude problem. While he is guarded about the inherent risks riders expose themselves to, he cites the absence of bike lanes on many  Kenyan roads.

“There is the feeling of being ‘second’, as if cyclists don’t deserve to ride on the major roads,” he says.

He adds that there exists a sort of ‘co-operation’ between cyclists and truck drivers, but this usually works when a rider is kitted in professional gear.

“Drivers actually slow down, notify us of any danger ahead when a cyclist wants to let go off the truck.”

Ambiguity in the Kenya Traffic law has also abetted the practice. There is no explicit clause that makes “hitching” a traffic violation, but suffice to say, most opportunist riders wouldn’t risk being nabbed, and in all likelihood most would know the spots where police are likely to be stationed.

On a recent Friday evening, traffic crawls along Uhuru Highway. Not too thick, but patience isn’t exactly a strong virtue in Kenya. The traffic lights are not working and everything goes, but a lone traffic police officer further up the road labours to maintain coherence.

Then I see him: amidst a man in a wheelchair picks his way among the trucks and minivans and saloons. He pulls up to a truck, lets go of one of the hand pedals and grabs the side of the truck.

The traffic opens up. I keep my eyes on the man in the wheelchair. The truck helps him along but just as the trailer approaches the Kenyatta Avenue junction, the man notices the police officer and abandons his ride. The traffic will most likely slow down and the man will find another opportunity.

Most likely, somewhere at Kinungi or Kinare on the Naivasha-Nakuru highway a similar scene is playing itself out.