Forget about road safety! Our traffic laws are dead!

SIR— Recently a lot has been written about road safety in Uganda. Not long ago, The Monitor published an article quoting a survey which found out that 40% of taxi drivers were of abnormal levels of insanity. As the Christmas season approached, traffic police went on roads to curb irresponsible road users. Two traffic policemen did work at Bwaise. I commend them for the good job they did. Before they came in, Bwaise had a reputation for traffic jams. Today those gentlemen no longer control traffic but watch as their brain-child works. There is a single traffic line from Kampala and another one to Kampala. It is a slow but smooth flow, no change of gears, no insults and abuses. The only culprits are government vehicles, so-called VIPs and bullion vans. Ordinary citizens follow the single lanes set up by the two policemen; but when those culprits disorganise their work, the jam immediately starts. Driving on Kampala roads is like the movement of rural folks in our villages. The rural people rarely follow established paths to their neighbours but through the plantains and they burst into the neighbours’ compound. In Kampala, motorists don’t mind about established traffic regulations. Someone should give him/her the way! All traffic signs, where they exist, are not respected by motorists! There are no rights and never claim that you are in the right when on Uganda’s roads. The laws governing road usage are long dead! Even the traffic police watch as those laws are flouted. Two examples suffice to illustrate my claim. The Jinja Road roundabout joining Yusuf Lule Road and Access Road. Here the traffic police stop traffic in the middle of the roundabout. The law states that once at that roundabout, a motorist must go through it non-stop. The jam which always comes up makes these traffic police personnel seem irrelevant and ignorant of what they are supposed to do. They, in most cases, give up and watch the circus torture whoever joins in. Another example is at the Spear Motors junction. Here the lanes are clearly marked for no overtaking. But in most cases the traffic police watch as motorists create three, sometimes four, lanes! When the lights release one side, motorists have nowhere to go because they are blocked by the illegal lanes created. Overloading and poor vehicle conditions are not primary issues for highway traffic. Now when will the laws be followed so that order on the roads is restored? Unless the law is changed that all traffic offences have a mandatory prison sentence, even if for a few days, motorists in Uganda will never respect those laws and accidents will abound. Richard Nyhiiro Kampala