Fika Salama: Make it a culture not a daytime roadblock
On Tuesday night there was another accident on Jinja Road involving two taxis and a Fuso truck. According to initial reports, at least 10 people died. This is in spite of the famed Fika salama campaign aimed at reducing the carnage on roads. Sadly, Fika Salama, will never work. I will explain further.
Fika Salama is a classic example of treating symptoms and not the cause. Any good doctor will tell you that in order to resolve an illness; one must get to the root cause of the problem through proper diagnosis and then treat the cause of the problem. As an example, if one is suffering from continuous headaches, but keeps treating the problem with aspirin or paracetamol, the problem may never go away and could be a more serious matter, like a tumour on the brain.
By looking at the problem on the roads in a realistic way, then addressing, over a long period of time, the root causes of the matter, the carnage will stop. Fika Salama takes care of the short term matters and resolves many issues during daylight, but as darkness descends, the carnage returns.
The problem is the mind-set of drivers. It starts with our leaders and then follows through to everyone else. Many times I see a Member of Parliament following a lead police car, driving incredibly fast, through a very busy area where there are many vehicles, boda bodas and pedestrians without a thought. Even just trying to get out of their way is difficult, yet they speed on. What could possibly be so urgent for an MP, could it be getting to a meeting? Getting home in the evening? And these cases are not isolated, they occur every day in various places.
I will call this condition “idiot drivers syndrome” because it is an illness and should be treated as one. This condition exists in the mind of the drivers, be it from lack of education, caring or just plain stupidity. I see it every morning when I drive to work. They drive like there is no one else on the road, overtaking blindly and hoping the on-coming car will see them, stop or pull over and make way.
When they don’t, that is when these accidents occur. And statistics will prove me right, most accidents happen at night. When the Fika salama men and women have gone home and are safely tucked away in their beds.
Mandatory vehicle inspection is designed to address this carnage by making sure vehicles are safe and in good condition. This is hog wash. You can give a driver suffering from “idiot syndrome” the latest, high tech, safety designed car on the road, ABS, anti-skid, driver assist computer aided driving, run flat tyres, name it – but once an idiot is behind the wheel, an accident will occur. Perhaps not that day, that week, but within a year or so, that idiot will most certainly kill someone, a child, a boda boda cyclist, people in another vehicle, a terrible result is guaranteed.
We have now defined the problem and established the root cause. Now how do we treat it?
Step one is education. Not just for the drivers, but the general public too. And start in the PLE schools. Ingrain road safety into them from a young age. The plan should include change for the generations to come.
Step two; address the consequence of idiotic driving. The traffic police should address bad behaviour at all times, with consistency and without favour. Target all road offenders, all the time, however small the offence (driving on the road verge, forming extra lanes, not indicating, etc). This will bring an element of discipline back to the roads and start changing mind-sets.
Step three; lead by example. Police should follow the rules of the road to the letter and all transgressions must be penalised. Let it be like Rudi Giuliani’s policy in New York where to address major crime, he nailed the jay walkers, traffic offenders and litterers and slowly over time, the crime culture in New York receded.
The main point is that the problems on the road can not be fixed by short term solutions. It is a long term project and should have clearly defined outcomes and have an across the board implementation strategy.
Fika Salama must become a culture, not a daytime road block along Masaka Road! The current campaign is like aspirin – it treats the symptoms, but never addresses the real problem.
Mr Glencross is the managing director, Monitor Publications Limited.
