Govt is partly to blame for traffic accidents
I wish to convey my sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of the people that recently perished in the Kampala-Jinja and Kampala-Masaka road traffic accidents (RTA). In the same vein, I do to all others that have been subjected to similar tragedies on our water bodies like Lake Victoria an
By Myers Lugemwa
I wish to convey my sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of the people that recently perished in the Kampala-Jinja and Kampala-Masaka road traffic accidents (RTA). In the same vein, I do to all others that have been subjected to similar tragedies on our water bodies like Lake Victoria and Albert.
Ironically, all this has been happening and will continue to happen at the alter of flouting both road and marine traffic laws to the extent that one is compelled to think that the said laws do not exist. Unless the Government comes out and stops handling RTAs and Marine accidents with kid gloves, Ugandans will be compelled to apportion blame to it!
Like the trinity, three ‘Ms’ exist in the causation of accidents; man, motorway and machine. But of all these three, man is the number one contributor to the sad scenario of events. This is because he is the manufacturer of the motor vehicle, canoe or boat used on the water bodies and therefore is supposed to ensure good mechanical condition of the machine.
He is the constructor of the road on which the said machine plies. But since man is the living thing, it is obligatory upon him to control the three ‘Ms’ including himself.
Since the first RTA that occurred in Uganda in 1922 on the Masaka-Kampala road involving the then governor’s wife, the accidents have kept on increasing.
Only in the last five years, the Rutoto bus accident that involved over 70 passengers who were totally incinerated has not gone into oblivion. The Kabale accident on the Kigali-Kampala bound bus seems to have occurred yesterday. now the recent RTAs and the daily boda boda accidents cannot let any sober person keep quiet.
Having been the casualty officer in charge of Emergency and Accident Department at Mulago Hospital in the late 1990’s and early 2000, I and other colleagues in the medical fraternity bore the blunt of these victims if they ever happened to reach the hospital before they took their last breath.
It is from their last words that one would hear horrendous narratives of how reckless the driver had been, how the vehicles had been dangerously over loaded, how the driver was using a jerry can beside him to siphon fuel into the engine, how the brakes were ineffective but the driver insisted on driving the vehicle, all prior to the accident.
The question is why do these accidents occur at unprecedented rates than in those countries where there are more vehicles than the mere 50,000 vehicles in Uganda?
The most plausible answers to this question include, inter alia, the following:
1. Failure to respect the existing traffic laws that do not allow pillioning which is common, while Traffic Police watches.
Pillioning is an offence where a cyclist carries more than one passenger on the pillion (seat). In most cases, the cyclist does not have a helmet nor does the passenger. Any accident happening to any of the persons on the cycle is apt to culminate into a brain injury that may lead one to becoming a cabbage, epileptic or mentally deranged.
It must be remembered that treating a fracture of the thigh bone resulting from this scenario for three months on traction in hospital costs not less than shlm. Pillioning does not happen in developed countries or neighboring Rwanda at all.
2. Most Ugandans think that safety belts are meant for the police. This is acting jackass on premises of ignorance.
3. In developed countries, reflective material such as jackets, budges, shoes and bicycle gadgets are not only mandatory if one has to move at night, but are compulsorily sold with the cycle; a dream even to the shopkeepers who sell these items!
Anyone driving at night on the Gulu-Kampala road will be amazed at how charcoal lorries load, overtake or by passing such a vehicle forces one to get off the road in order to save their life. These lorries pass through so many check points but nothing is done to the culprits. Does kintu kidogo change hands at life’s expense?
The five-seater taxis on Mbarara-Ibanda, Bushenyi, Ntungamo roads load double the number of passengers a they can seat.
5. Speed governors. These only became a talk of the day two years ago and disappeared in thin air! If government was serious, like the Kenyan minister of transport who made speed governors mandatory, a thing that reduced RTAs in Kenya by about 60%, speed governors would be at play in Uganda.
I sometimes wonder whether the law enforcers are impervious to the accidents they see daily. Every road user is prone to getting involved in an RTA as those that have perished at the expense of your failure to implement the law!
6. Uganda’s roads are a danger themselves. I think this time round, since the ministry of works was allocated trillions of shillings for roads, it will do a fair job.
7. Breath Analysers: Where are these gadgets? I am sure the Police must have budgeted for them but they may not have been considered a priority because the powers that be, think that they are impervious to the many accidents !
8. Drugs: It has been estimated through studies that about 20% of truck and taxi drivers engage in marijuana, khanabis, opium, aviation fuel sniff and waragi, especially in the evenings. The evening and night accidents involving these people especially on Jinja, Entebbe, Masaka roads is as a result of such engagements, while the law enforcers and other citizens watch.
9. Driving fatigue syndrome: While this may not be common, most truck drivers drive under fatigue. This has in most cases led to their tracks getting off the course and plunged into the bush if not people’s homes.
10. Life jackets: Like seat belts, life jackets for marine travellers are not anything to think about in Uganda. Lives have perished especially on Lake Victoria and Albert because these sailors had no jackets and yet canoes have continued to ply these waters albeit their lack of these life savers.
It is unfortunate and absurd that all these things are happening when the Government exists and does not invoke the constitutional mandate of protecting wananchi’s lives, not only from military aggression, disease, but also from road carnage!
I implore the Government to endeavour, to invoke and implement laws that lie on the shelves at the expense of road/marine users.
The writer is a doctor formerly in charge of accident and emergency, Mulago Hospital
I wish to convey my sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of the people that recently perished in the Kampala-Jinja and Kampala-Masaka road traffic accidents (RTA). In the same vein, I do to all others that have been subjected to similar tragedies on our water bodies like Lake Victoria and Albert.
Ironically, all this has been happening and will continue to happen at the alter of flouting both road and marine traffic laws to the extent that one is compelled to think that the said laws do not exist. Unless the Government comes out and stops handling RTAs and Marine accidents with kid gloves, Ugandans will be compelled to apportion blame to it!
Like the trinity, three ‘Ms’ exist in the causation of accidents; man, motorway and machine. But of all these three, man is the number one contributor to the sad scenario of events. This is because he is the manufacturer of the motor vehicle, canoe or boat used on the water bodies and therefore is supposed to ensure good mechanical condition of the machine.
He is the constructor of the road on which the said machine plies. But since man is the living thing, it is obligatory upon him to control the three ‘Ms’ including himself.
Since the first RTA that occurred in Uganda in 1922 on the Masaka-Kampala road involving the then governor’s wife, the accidents have kept on increasing.
Only in the last five years, the Rutoto bus accident that involved over 70 passengers who were totally incinerated has not gone into oblivion. The Kabale accident on the Kigali-Kampala bound bus seems to have occurred yesterday. now the recent RTAs and the daily boda boda accidents cannot let any sober person keep quiet.
Having been the casualty officer in charge of Emergency and Accident Department at Mulago Hospital in the late 1990’s and early 2000, I and other colleagues in the medical fraternity bore the blunt of these victims if they ever happened to reach the hospital before they took their last breath.
It is from their last words that one would hear horrendous narratives of how reckless the driver had been, how the vehicles had been dangerously over loaded, how the driver was using a jerry can beside him to siphon fuel into the engine, how the brakes were ineffective but the driver insisted on driving the vehicle, all prior to the accident.
The question is why do these accidents occur at unprecedented rates than in those countries where there are more vehicles than the mere 50,000 vehicles in Uganda?
The most plausible answers to this question include, inter alia, the following:
1. Failure to respect the existing traffic laws that do not allow pillioning which is common, while Traffic Police watches.
Pillioning is an offence where a cyclist carries more than one passenger on the pillion (seat). In most cases, the cyclist does not have a helmet nor does the passenger. Any accident happening to any of the persons on the cycle is apt to culminate into a brain injury that may lead one to becoming a cabbage, epileptic or mentally deranged.
It must be remembered that treating a fracture of the thigh bone resulting from this scenario for three months on traction in hospital costs not less than shlm. Pillioning does not happen in developed countries or neighboring Rwanda at all.
2. Most Ugandans think that safety belts are meant for the police. This is acting jackass on premises of ignorance.
3. In developed countries, reflective material such as jackets, budges, shoes and bicycle gadgets are not only mandatory if one has to move at night, but are compulsorily sold with the cycle; a dream even to the shopkeepers who sell these items!
Anyone driving at night on the Gulu-Kampala road will be amazed at how charcoal lorries load, overtake or by passing such a vehicle forces one to get off the road in order to save their life. These lorries pass through so many check points but nothing is done to the culprits. Does kintu kidogo change hands at life’s expense?
The five-seater taxis on Mbarara-Ibanda, Bushenyi, Ntungamo roads load double the number of passengers a they can seat.
5. Speed governors. These only became a talk of the day two years ago and disappeared in thin air! If government was serious, like the Kenyan minister of transport who made speed governors mandatory, a thing that reduced RTAs in Kenya by about 60%, speed governors would be at play in Uganda.
I sometimes wonder whether the law enforcers are impervious to the accidents they see daily. Every road user is prone to getting involved in an RTA as those that have perished at the expense of your failure to implement the law!
6. Uganda’s roads are a danger themselves. I think this time round, since the ministry of works was allocated trillions of shillings for roads, it will do a fair job.
7. Breath Analysers: Where are these gadgets? I am sure the Police must have budgeted for them but they may not have been considered a priority because the powers that be, think that they are impervious to the many accidents !
8. Drugs: It has been estimated through studies that about 20% of truck and taxi drivers engage in marijuana, khanabis, opium, aviation fuel sniff and waragi, especially in the evenings. The evening and night accidents involving these people especially on Jinja, Entebbe, Masaka roads is as a result of such engagements, while the law enforcers and other citizens watch.
9. Driving fatigue syndrome: While this may not be common, most truck drivers drive under fatigue. This has in most cases led to their tracks getting off the course and plunged into the bush if not people’s homes.
10. Life jackets: Like seat belts, life jackets for marine travellers are not anything to think about in Uganda. Lives have perished especially on Lake Victoria and Albert because these sailors had no jackets and yet canoes have continued to ply these waters albeit their lack of these life savers.
It is unfortunate and absurd that all these things are happening when the Government exists and does not invoke the constitutional mandate of protecting wananchi’s lives, not only from military aggression, disease, but also from road carnage!
I implore the Government to endeavour, to invoke and implement laws that lie on the shelves at the expense of road/marine users.
The writer is a doctor formerly in charge of accident and emergency, Mulago Hospital