Passengers hold key to ending road anarchy

Reports in the media can be disheartening. If it’s not about the city sinking in a gutter, it’s about ethnic ideologues gone rogue.

If it’s not of macabre acts of domestic violence, it’s of horrific road crashes.

The primeval nature of human beings towards oddity or the dramatic, still rule news selection and conveyance.

But hey, all is not hell. One of the most refreshing news in the recent past was that of passengers of a city-bound bus who stood up against a wild driver.

They alerted the police in Naivasha. The driver was arrested.

This is a rarity of courage, a seed for social-conscious revolution if you will. It merits plaudits.

DRIVERS
Indeed, one shudders at the thought of a potential tragedy were the driver let to continue with his death-courting antics.

If you recall, in a crash at Migaa late last year, survivors narrated of a driver who had thrown caution to the wind.

This is how Mr Kepha Wanga, a survivor, recounted to the Daily Nation:

“Before we rammed into the truck, the driver had managed to avoid hitting other vehicles on the highway but lost control as we manoeuvred the steep descent from Sachangwan.”

It’s depressing that the passengers, even though endangered, chose silence. For cowardice and aloofness, they paid the price.

PASSENGERS
And that has been our ruin. Passengers are a self-centred lot.

They have also settled for less and have accepted the systemic road abuse even when their vessels are simply slaughterhouse in motion.

And for those who protest, they hardly attract the support of others making it a typical case of bystander apathy.

The cunning PSV crew understand this weakness all too well, and have capitalised on it.

Yet, passengers, as key stakeholders, have a critical role to play in ensuring civility in the sector.

And this sense of duty was perfectly displayed by the passengers in the Nairobi-bound bus.

RULES

We need this culture and sense of conscious to be inculcated in all passengers.

We need a sense of communal duty among all passengers to drum sense into PSV crew.

This reawakening will likely produce a new order and tame the runaway road anarchy.

The Naivasha incident is a fantastic starting point. Passengers are realising unless they take charge of their public safety, they will continue to perish.

When passengers are bold and united in purpose, it calls for support from the traffic police, the media, judiciary, policy-makers and proprietors.

TECHNOLOGY
But if other stakeholders dither, passengers have to be firm.

There is no way out towards change without grit, conviction and sacrifice.

We are a lucky generation with the gift of information technology at our disposal.

We must muster its usage on the roads to blow the whistle.

Indeed, by the virtue of belonging to a society with norms and laws, it’s immoral to keep quiet, or even to be ignorant, on issues of life and death as is public safety on the roads.

IDEALS

In the interest of common good, we’re all called to invoke our civility and support the justice system.

Thus, our voices will be critical preventive mechanisms.

Kenyans should draw a lot of inspiration from the story of Rosa Parks.

Hers may be of another generation, in a distant world. Still, she is the famed lady who in the height of civil rights movement, and when racism was chewing the American society, refused to leave her seat for a white person.

Her story became an instant hit, a legend even. It helped in the agitation for rights. We need more Parks here in Kenya.

Once we develop such consciousness in relation to our public safety, I’m eternally optimistic that the same magic will generate a ripple effect to other sectors.

That is why, the ideals of ruthlessly putting breaks on rogue drivers need to be cheered endorsed and supported.

Mr Wamanji is a Public Relations & communication advisor. Views are personal. [email protected] Twitter: @manjis