Comment — Road accidents are on the rise like never before and it is important for us to interrogate the major causes. This is not the first time we are raising this issue. In just eight days, we lost 83 lives and 297 were left seriously injured in 360 accidents.
In just three days (December 23- 26, 2022, we lost 55 lives in 206 road crashes. We lost more than 50 lives between December 28 and January 01, 2023 in 104 road crashes. On January 06, 16 people died in an accident on the Gulu highway.
According to the Annual Crime Report 2021, there were 17,443 road accidents reported in 2021, an increase of 42% from the 12,249 reported in 2020. The report said 3757 of the accidents were fatal, 9070 serious and 4616 were minor leading to 18,035 and 4159 dead.
Between December 2022 and January 2023, in just one week, we have lost over 80 people and 200 were injured. In 2021, over 37,000 died and over 10,000 injured due to serious accidents and over 17,000 in minor accidents. Further, it was reported that Boda-bodas killed five people every day totaling to 1,918 deaths in one year. These figures are scary and yet keep escalating by day. The trend is worrying.
According to WHO, 1.3 million people around the world die due to accidents each year and between 20 and 50 million people survive with non-fatal injuries from road accidents. More than half of all road traffic deaths and injuries involve vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists and their passengers.
Further, road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5-29. Young males under 25 years are more likely to be involved in road traffic crashes than females, with 73% of all road traffic deaths occurring among young males in that age. Developing economies record higher rates of road traffic injuries, with 93% of fatalities coming from low- and middle-income countries such as Uganda. Uganda has contributed highest to these statistics with 29 deaths per 100km according to the WHO Global status report on road safety.
The Road accidents do not only cause human suffering but also impose a heavy economic burden on victims and their families in terms of treatment costs for the injured, loss of productivity of those killed or disabled and this costs countries around 3% loss of their annual gross domestic product. This simply indicates that accidents do not only cause death and injuries but have significant impact on the socio-economic development of a country and therefore the need for the country to treat this urgently.
There are a number of causes of these fatal accidents both on the roads, railway and water and instead of acknowledging responsibility and work to do better, I have witnessed a lot of blame game which does not help. This does not mean that I condone any indiscipline leading to accidents but that these accidents are all usually non-natural occurrences which we could have avoided in the first place.
Police have attributed most accidents to dangerous driving and vehicles being in dangerous mechanical condition. If you have stayed in Uganda just for a day, you will quickly note how reckless most motorists and pedestrians are. You cannot expect drivers that defy traffic rules in the city to respect rules while on the highways. There seems to be always an urge to overtake and when you follow keenly, some are in a hurry to overtake to go pick children from school or join their favorite kafunda (alcohol vending shop)! We have also witnessed situations where many drivers assume the right of way even when they are not entitled to. Large passenger buses have become another death trap with their drivers driving recklessly to the extent that some were once banned, and indeed, there was some change. When it comes to Boda-bodas, majority seem to either not understand traffic rules or simply choose to ignore them. Even with the introduction of junction boxes in some parts of the city, you will still see a swarm of Boda-bodas right in the middle of the junction box!
Most of our roads are dangerously narrow and dark and make it difficult for road users. Most of the road signs are missing and neither are most humps painted to clearly warn drivers. Some potholes have gained a perpetual status; for they will never be fixed! How many barriers do we have at railway crossings? How many roads are properly lit? How many road signs do we still have on the roads that one has to hit a hump in the night for them to know that it exists? How many ambulances do we have that can rescue accident victims? How many highways have emergency parking sideways; when a car breaks down in a corner on the Kisoro Road, where will the motorist safely park it? Does the Police have enough resources to deploy 24 hours on major highways?
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Under the various legal regimes on road safety such as the Roads Act, UNRA Act, Traffic road and safety Act among others and under the UN Development Goals; SDG 3.6 and SDG 11.2 which sought to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2020 and to provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport by 2030 respectively, it is the Government's sole responsibility to provide safe and adequate infrastructure to ensure that all roads are safe and motorable. This means that a victim can succeed in an action against the government for failure to ensure safety of road users.
As we caution drivers to drive carefully, the government through its MDAs has a bigger responsibility to ensure that all roads are safe and that all road users have proper information and infrastructure to guide them.
