Play your role to end road accidents
The suspension of Gaaga Bus Services has since been lifted and we are nearly back to business as usual. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
- It is also not the government that puts one’s finger on a phone to respond to a text that could perhaps wait than endanger another person’s life.
- Each of us must play a role to ensure that we bring accidents to an end.
The hullabaloo made after the bus accident on the Gulu- Kiryandongo road on May 25 that left 22 people dead has ceased. There has been a long pause on the Daily Monitor newspaper’s awareness campaign of “Stay in your Lane” and the promise tracker on government promises and commitments to control road accidents. The suspension of Gaaga Bus Services has since been lifted and we are nearly back to business as usual.
SafeBoda has recruited many motorcycle riders, but another boda boda group has come up, accusing SafeBoda of bankrupting their business and being unsafe. While all this is happening, accidents continue to occur on our roads. But why should we care? After all, it is about someone else. Such is the apathy that follows the reckless loss of lives that often interrupts our lives.
The Gulu- Kiryandongo road accident shook me to the core because I was scheduled to travel by Gaaga Bus the evening after this fateful day. For one that regularly travels on Ugandan roads, I cannot be so detached from the dangers that lurk on these stretches of pressed out Bitumen. I recall when this road carnage happened - days of mourning were declared and victims’ families given some money. Besides, all the relevant government bodies proposed strategies to stop road accidents.
The botched safety belts installation campaign would once again see the light of day alongside its long forgotten speed governor cousin. So now we wait, not with bated breath but with a sigh of indifference, all so well knowing that these empty threats will disappear to oblivion.
Of course, my desire is that one day, we will all take responsibility for how we treat each other on the roads. I look forward to the day when I don’t have to incessantly keep looking left and right as I cross the road in case a boda boda comes out from under an oncoming truck to knock me.
I am especially appalled by the impatient honking, disregard for all traffic rules, text-driving, speeding and kids glove handling of traffic offenders. To a larger extent, it will not only take government intervention for us to stop this senseless murder on our roads.
We have to get to a point where each road user is aware that they have the responsibility to keep all other road users alive regardless of who is right or wrong. It is not the responsibility of government to step on the brake pedal in order to reduce speed at a corner or overtake without regard to other oncoming traffic. It is not government that instructs one to drink-drive.
It is also not the government that puts one’s finger on a phone to respond to a text that could perhaps wait than endanger another person’s life.
Each of us must play a role to ensure that we bring accidents to an end.
Nayah Kobere,
[email protected]
