Road carnage paradox: Few accidents but more deaths reported

Mariam Namusoke and Mariam Jagenda were walking on Mbogo Road walkway at around 1am on July 1, 2020, on their return home in Makindye Division, Kampala.

Suddenly, a motorist driving a Mercedes Benz veered off the road and knocked them.

Namusoke died on the spot while Jagenda sustained serious injuries. Jagenda was taken to Mulago National Referral Hospital in a critical condition fighting for her life. She later survived, but with life-long debilitation.  

Kampala Metropolitan Police deputy spokesperson Luke Owoyesigyire said the detectives found out later that the motorist, who caused the accident, was driving under the influence of alcohol.

Namusoke was among the statistics of 33,711 people killed on Uganda roads in the last 10 years, meaning on average, nine persons have died on Uganda’s roads each day since 2011.

The total number of accidents recorded by police within the past decade is 164,425, official statistics show, and there is no record of how many of these were fully investigated and errant parties prosecuted.

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly had declared 2011-2020 a decade of action for road safety. The UN goal was to reduce road carnage by a half by 2020.

Instead, in Uganda, road accident fatalities continued to increase with corresponding increase in number of vehicles on the roads and the country’s population.

At the beginning of the decade, at least 3,300 deaths of accident victims were registered in 2011, but by 2020 the numbers were grossing 4,000 fatalities, police records show.

Official data shows that six of every 10 road traffic victims in Uganda are young people in the 25-45 years age bracket, which is the most productive age group.

Although the yearly number of road accidents have been reducing, from 19,000 incidents in 2011 to 13,000 in 2020, the deaths are rising. Put another way: fewer accidents, more deaths.

Pedestrians followed by users of motorcycles are the major victims in the fatality statistics on the roads.

At least 38 per cent (13,074) of the people who perished in accidents on Uganda’s roads in the past decade were pedestrians.

They are followed by motorcyclists at 23.5 per cent. But when you add motorcyclists and their passengers together, the percentage rises to 32.7 per cent (11,027 deaths) over the 10 years.

In the last decade, motorcyclists and pedestrians combined contributed 71.4 per cent, which is 24,101 deaths, of the total fatalities.

Other type of vehicles, including private cars and lorries, led to the death of 3,752 people last decade.

According to Uganda Bureau of Statistics, annually the country loses five per cent of Gross Domestic Product, which is around Shs4.4 trillion, in deaths or injuries that take people out of productive work. This means the country lost more than Shs40 trillion in a decade due to road accidents. Even last year when the government imposed a lockdown on public service vans and other non-essential vehicles for nearly six months, the fatalities on the roads didn’t drop significantly as expected.

Mr Lawrence Nuwabiine, the acting director of Traffic and Road Safety, attributed indiscipline of road users as the major cause of road accidents in Uganda. Reckless driving, careless driving and careless pedestrians were the leading three causes of accidents last decade, according to police.

Mr Nuwabiine said motorcyclists (boda bodas) are so dangerous that he strongly advises anyone to avoid using them.

“Don’t put your children on these boda bodas. You rather use any other transport means, but not boda bodas,” he said in an interview for this article.

Mr Nuwabiine bases his warning on road carnage statistics over the last five years, which show that 95 of every 100 people, who died in accidents in that period, were boda  bodas, their passengers and pedestrians.

At least 13,556 (95 per cent) pedestrians and boda boda users, including riders and their passengers, were killed in the past five years.

The rest of the other motor vehicles, including buses, taxis and private cases, contribute only five per cent of the deaths in the same period.

Even during the lockdown of the country to prevent the spread of coronavirus last year, fatalities of boda boda continued to shoot up.

In the category of road users, it was only motorcycles where deaths increased last year. Police reports show that the majority of pedestrians are knocked while crossing the road. The pedestrians are ploughed by vehicles that veer off the road.

Police figures also show a high number of pedestrians knocked by vehicles that are avoiding to collide with other vehicles, which points to challenges of road designs that don’t have walk ways.

Kampala Metropolitan and other urban areas registered the highest incidents where pedestrians are knocked by motorists.

The Study on Greater Kampala Road Network and Transport Improvement in the Republic of Uganda in 2010 showed that city roads had inappropriate walkways, which means that many pedestrians have to share the same lane with boda boda cyclists and other motor vehicles.

This has been exacerbated by high demand of roads, especially bitumen, in townships and city suburbs yet the authorities have no funds to acquire enough width that can accommodate walkways, proper drainage channels and the carriageway.

Residents are offering a few metres of their land just enough for the construction of the road carriageway.

Kampala City needs around 1,053km of walkways, estimated to cost around Shs100b, to drastically reduce fatalities and injuries of pedestrians on the road, according to Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project (KCRRP).

Ten annual police reports show that authorities have been having a challenge regulating and controlling boda boda riders and pedestrians, which they say has led to the increase in fatalities and injuries.

However, deaths and injuries in accidents involving motorists such as bus drivers and taxi operators, who have undergone specific training and adhere more to traffic rules, have reduced.

Buses and taxis are the safest vehicles on the road, according to the 10-year traffic statistics.

Accidents involving buses, commuter taxis and coasters combined claimed only 1,229 passengers in 10 years.

In fact, fatality accidents involving all passenger service vehicles combined had fewer death numbers than pedal cyclists in the same period. At least 2,025 pedal cyclists died in road accidents in the last 10 years.

Mr Allan Ssempebwa, the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) spokesperson, said the problem is not largely the road design, but bad behaviours of motorists. “There are areas demarcated as crossing for pedestrians, but many motorists don’t respect them. You would see a person speeding at a zebra crossing,” he said.

Mr Ssempebwa said most motorists drive recklessly that when they are involved in a collision, pedestrians are affected.

He said guardrails on the roadsides are also intended to protect pedestrians in case the driver loses control of the vehicle and veers off the road.

Before the start of last decade, police and Ministry of Works and Transport experts attributed some of the indiscipline on the roads to weak laws and tabled bills to reduce accidents.

Efforts to amend the Traffic and Road Safety Act of 1998 were stalled in Parliament until 2020 when the law was passed by Parliament and assented to by the President.

The Traffic and Road Safety Act (Amendment) 2020, outgoing Works and Transport minister Gen Edward Katumba Wamala said the amended traffic law will empower the re-organisation of public transport, including boda bodas.   

“This would ensure sustainable and organised public transport, ensure self-compliance, discipline on the roads and avoid wasteful competition by operators,” Gen Katumba said.

The penalties in the new traffic law tackling indiscipline are stiffer than in the old law. For instance, drink-driving attracts a fine of Shs6m or three years imprisonment on conviction or both compared to the Shs300,000 and Shs1.2m or a maximum of two years or both penalty in the previous law.

To tackle bad behaviours on the road, the government empowered driving schools with standard curriculum and they are only institutions authorised to train and process driving permits for drivers.

The amendments in the traffic laws are yet to be enforced as the government has to sensitise the motorists about them first.