Ensure travellers’ safety during festive season
The merrymaking during the festive season has a terrible flipside to it. This is the perennial slaughter on the roads that is beckoning once again as holidaymakers make a beeline for their destinations to have fun. There is a need to ensure that all safely arrive where they are going, enjoy themselves and return to work early next year.
Christmas and New Year celebrations should not be turned into a period of agony and sorrow through unbridled recklessness. The major culprits are the public transporters. They provide a key service, but must also enhance security so that they do not end up losing the very people they need to get a return on their investment in the public service vehicles (PSVs).
Hopefully, the road slaughter that often happens during this time will be curbed. While traffic police and the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) should intensify monitoring and enforce traffic and regulations, passengers must also play a part in enhancing their own safety.
Nothing prevents people from protesting if their matatu and bus drivers speed or overtake dangerously. There is also no reason why they must board vehicles that are already full. Travelling for holidays should not be a matter of life and death. They can as well remain where they live and work until after the holidays and avoid the dangerous rush.
As the festive season peaks and so is the likelihood of road accidents. Last year, more than 300 people died during the Christmas and New Year festivities.
PSV operators are notorious for overloading, speeding and reckless driving as they rush to maximise profits. The PSVs happen to be the main culprits in road carnage.
The NTSA and traffic police have cautioned motorists and passengers about black spots that pose the highest risk to motorists and travellers. Many are on the Nairobi-Nakuru-Eldoret highway that is part of the Northern Corridor that connects Kenya to Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, and Burundi.
Most accidents occur at night due to human error, speeding and overtaking. Motorists must be more cautious to save lives.
