May this young man's Soul Rest in Peace. The... carnage continues due to unprecedented levels of greed, dereliction of duty, and lack of accountability. The funds are actually there and have been provided over the past decade. The Ministry of Finance Ministry of Finance has released about UGX 100 Billion since 2019 for a Department of Government whose main responsibility and objective should be prevention of road crashes. These funds have been spent on activities with very minimal impact on road safety. This information has been shared with IGG, Office of the Auditor General Uganda, Criminal Investigations Directorate-UPF. How do you explained the death of a young man in a fatal road crash that caused the incineration of the vehicle which he was driving? He must have been driving in one of the best motor vehicles in this country given the wealth of his family. He was driving a motor vehicle which probably had good safety features on a smooth road without pot holes. It is easy to draw conclusions like he was speeding, he was fatigued, he lost control of his motor vehicle, he made errors, e.t.c. Whereas all that may be true, did he deserve to die in such a gruesome way for those errors in judgement? The answer is a BIG NO. The truth is government failed him in so many ways. At the center of modern day road safety management is recognition that errors made by road users (drivers, motorcyclists, cyclist and pedestrians) MUST NOT lead to their demise. Here is a situation he found himself in: Concrete Barriers on a road that encourages high speed. Who has the onus to remove this hazard? Government. I could have perished in the same circumstances a few years back before the completion of the KEE on the way to the Airport. It was a rainy early morning at about 5:00am and I drove through barriers which were made of plastic. So why were these not made of plastic? Was there a provision for lighting on that section? If not, it should have been there. This is what we mean when we say roads should be forgiving. Apart from their design, road sides are the major reference here. The road should have forgiven him for this error if it had plastic reflective barriers. These kind of barriers would have caught his attention and he would have stopped his car instead of killing him. Were the traffic lights functional? Why was there no hazard signage or warning of any sort since there were barriers in middle of the road? This section of the road is built as an expressway and as such encourages speeding especially at any time beyond midnight. There are no traffic calming measures in place yet it is freely used by pedestrians and Boda-Bodaz like any other city road. Roads are supposed to be designed and constructed bearing in mind the activities that take place around them (Land Use). Interventions to control speed must be implemented if there is a high volume of different road users. They would have got his attention and he would not have died. A glaring example of contractors that do not care about road safety is on the section of Kampala-Masaka in the swampy section of Lwera. The Concrete Barriers are there and in places where they are not, there is nothing preventing a motor vehicle falling off into the swamp. Not even a rope. UNTIL THE DAY WHEN THE LEADERSHIP OF THIS COUNTRY ACCEPTS THAT ROAD CRASHES ARE PREVENTABLE AND PARLIAMENT STARTS DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILTY ON ROAD SAFETY, THIS CARNAGE WILL CONTINUE. ACCEPTING THERE IS A PROBLEM IS THE FIRST STEP TO SOLVING IT OR MANAGING IT. TOMORROW IT MIGHT BE ME OR YOU. LETS STOP PAYING LIP SERVICE TO UGANDANS ESPECIALLY ALL THOSE FAMILIES THAT LOSE LOVED ONES IN THIS MESS OF GREED AND LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY. Uganda Police Force Parliament of Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Road And Water Safety ROSAC United Initiative Uganda Limited 🇺🇬 Road Sense Kenya - RSK Brian 4RoadSafety roadsafetypros Road Safety Awareness Initiative (Kenya) Road Safety Alliance UN Road Safety Anita Annet Among Safe Transport and Survivors Support Uganda Legacy Road Safety Initiative (LRSI) Uganda Professional Drivers' Network Percy B Mulamba Munwankyo CISCOT Civil Society Coalition On Transport UG Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area - UDP Office of the Prime Minister - Ugandashow more
