Message from motorists to the road tsars ...

An accident on the Kisii-Keroka highway. Kenya's roads will never be safe. The best we can hope for is to make them less dangerous. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • For some reason, Kenya’s road safety efforts do the exact opposite.
  • They chronically set themselves against motorists, do more in policy, law, design and enforcement to slow traffic down rather than speed it up, and habitually create rather than remove obstacles to flow. 

Kenya's roads will never be safe. The best we can hope for is to make them less dangerous.

There are thousands of inherent risk factors in any road transport system, anywhere.  There are at least as many different ways to address those risks in efforts to reduce the dangers. But it is impossible to address them all. No country ever has nor ever will. So the question is which risks are greatest and which remedies are most imperative and effective?

Any answer must begin with recognition that the world spends trillions on roads and vehicles every year because road transport is the most flexible, rapid and cost-effective way to move people and things on land. That is its very purpose, so those attributes – versatility, speed and economy – are fundamental. Essential.  Sacrosanct.

That is the immutable fact that politicians, policy makers, administrators and the public must face up to, full-square, if we are to make any progress in reforming and refining our road transport system. 

The benefits of effective road transport are so universal and so important that it is the wish of every individual, and must be the imperative of national development, to maximise their availability, affordability and time-saving swiftness. All of them.

If any one of these attributes is unduly compromised by so-called “safety” measures, the road transport system cannot do its job properly and that will severely harm the entire economy, all development and the wellbeing of everybody.

Happily, we do not have to choose between efficiency and safety in road transport. They are not opposing forces. They are in perfect harmony.  Indeed, worldwide the most flexible, fastest and cost-effective road transport systems are also the safest.   There are no exceptions.

Their safety measures do not set themselves against motorists or traffic or other road users. They work with them to make moving people and things more efficient – faster and cheaper, and thereby safer. All other things being equal, in simple terms road transport systems work best (and most safely) when traffic flows;  not when it slows.  

THE OPPOSITE

For some reason, Kenya’s road safety efforts do the exact opposite. They chronically set themselves against motorists, do more in policy, law, design and enforcement to slow traffic down rather than speed it up, and habitually create rather than remove obstacles to flow. 

The political, policy and management challenges are huge. There are no silver bullets. Mistakes will be made. Perfection will not be achieved.  But if any progress is to be made, efficiency, economy, speed and safety must go hand in hand, in the same direction. 

Motorists are heartily fed up with political platitudes and the knee-jerk ticking of policy boxes and being blamed, charged and penalised for all the system’s shortcomings while those most culpable for the defects retain unqualified authority and immunity.  

The public’s plea to the road Tsars for 2017? Stand on your head and face the other way. Then at least you will be looking in the right direction for ways to make road transport more effective and less dangerous. It is said that the best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago. Failing that, the next best time is right now.