Do more to regulate boda boda industry

Boda bodas in Kampala on March 29, 2022. PHOTO/STEPHEN OTAGE

What you need to know:

The issue: Accidents

Our view: Going forward, let the concerned transport authorities and the traffic police; regulate the boda boda transport industry by first ensuring that each rider gets a riding permit before being allowed on the road.

Boda boda accidents that have led to the death of the riders themselves and their passengers,  topped last year’s Annual Crime and Traffic/Road Safety report road fatalities.

Released on Wednesday this week, the report recorded 4,159 road accident fatalities that happened countrywide with 1, 390 being as a result of boda bodas with 528 passengers on board.

This saw 1,918 deaths involving boda bodas, translating into 46 percent of all the road carnage in the period of reporting.

This is the first time in the history of the release of police annual reports, that the boda boda riders alongside their passengers, top the list of fatalities.

The police’s report clearly confirms everyone’s fears of how boda boda riders are a ticking time bomb that is slowly but steadily claiming innocent lives in preventable road carnage.

Sometimes, one wonders whether these, mostly young men, are intoxicated.

Often, they make the wrong turns, grave traffic decisions, speed beyond recommended limits, ride on pedestrian sidewalks, and ignore traffic lights among other life endangering decisions, which have resulted in loss of lives.

When you go to the causality wards in Mulago Hospital and other major regional referral hospitals, most patients you see are boda boda accident victims with broken limbs.

Those being treated, also turn into jobless and helpless citizens, who would have played an important role in the economic development of the country if they had not been involved in such preventable bike accidents.

But how did we end up here with the riders being the kings on our roads, who are now taking us to the slaughter lane each minute. According to a report released earlier this week by the Uganda Road Fund, showed that only one of every 10 riders received training from a professional instructor.

This statistic is very worrying and it could be the major reason why the majority of the riders make mistakes on the roads, turning themselves and their innocent passengers into road carnage statistics. Going forward, let the concerned transport authorities and the traffic police; regulate the boda boda transport industry by first ensuring that each rider gets a riding permit before being allowed on the road.

This is because most of the road accidents are as a result of careless human errors, which would have been avoided if every rider or driver was professionally trained.

Records show that the majority of riders are fresh from the village upon selling their plots of land to buy bikes, which they straight away put on the roads without acquiring the standard riding skills and permits. The result is what we are witnessing. 

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