Kampala streets a death trap for pedestrians, Police warn

Kampala
Police has highlighted how dangerous but how unnoticed walking can be on Kampala’s roads.

At least one person was been killed every day over the last two months, according to latest Police statics on roads accidents.

Taken as a national average, the first two months of 2010 shows an increase in pedestrian deaths compared to passenger deaths at the same period last year.

Addressing the weekly police press briefing in Kampala on MOnday, the officer in charge of traffic for Kampala Metropolitan, Mr Lawrence Niwabiine said 25 pedestrians were killed in January while 436 were injured.

Last month, 35 people died in accidents with 386 getting injured. This puts the total number of deaths at 60 and injuries at 822. He said some of those injured suffer permanent disability. The accidents were caused by a combination of hit and run motor cars and boda boda motor cycles.

While in many cases motorists share the blame for knocking those walking on the roads, Mr Niwabiine said the pedestrians also share part of the responsibility.

Careless pedestrians
“Most of these pedestrians who are being killed on our roads are mostly dying as a result of careless crossing of roads, avoiding flyovers and also the narrow roads themselves are a contributing factor since they have no provision of walk ways,” he said.

Uganda has one of the highest records of road carnage.

Police did not have consolidated figures of national accident related deaths so far, in the new year.

In 2009, the majority of people killed in accidents were passengers followed by pedestrians. Police figures show that from January to June 2009, more people died compared to those who perished in the same period in 2008.

Last year, 1,267 people were killed and 6,530 injured with the major numbers recorded from passengers.