Safety during festive season

Christmas is here. It’s just two days away. The festive season, however, started weeks ago with several people travelling to destinations where they prefer to spend Christmas and usher in the New Year. It is the norm for many Ugandans to travel to the countryside and join their extended families for the annual celebrations.
Due to the high number of travellers during this period, motorists, especially bus drivers, tend to drive recklessly, leading to increased number of accidents. In the last two weeks, a number of accidents have been reported on various highways and fatalities registered.

Last week, a UPDF Captain, Aaron Abaho, and his sister- in- law Yayeri Asasira, died in a motor accident on the Masaka-Kampala road after their car collided with a taxi at Kaddugala village, Mukungwe Sub County in Masaka District. Eight people sustained serious injuries.
The rise in accidents during this period has become an annual ritual, with police issuing warnings to motorists and cautioning them to drive carefully, respect speed limits, etc. But police warnings have failed to tame motorists as seen from accident reports, where most road crashes are blamed on speeding, reckless driving and other human errors.

Records from Uganda Police Force show that Uganda has registered 56, 565 accidents due to human error in only eight years. The cases are registered between 2010 and 2017.
Speeding, driving under the influence of drugs, including alcohol as well as overloading are some of the causes of road accidents. Police also have detailed data on black spots across the country.
This information, though crucial in addressing road safety concerns, has not been very effective in curbing accidents. Even with heavy police presence on major roads, reckless motorists continue to cause havoc.

Police have data that can help in drafting measures that, if implemented effectively, can tame reckless motorists and restore sanity on our roads. What is the use of compiling the black spots around the country if such data can’t be used to regulate driving around the dangerous areas.
Safety starts with individual motorists. To curb road accidents, we must make our personal safety and that of our passengers a priority. Police must also be ruthless in enforcing safety regulations. Reckless motorists should be punished and highways closely manned.