A horrific road crash where a high end sports utility vehicle rammed into the rear of a stalled lorry reducing it into a mangled wreckage has brought road safety to sharp focus.
The accident occurred at night in Nairobi on the Southern by-pass where the fate of the driver and the occupant(s) were not immediately established but unconfirmed reports indicated they died on impact.
Kenyans reacted angrily to the accident saying too many lives are being lost on the road in a similar manner where speeding drivers ram the rear end of stalled lorries.
The Motorist Association of Kenya (MAK) took to their social media page to lament and call for action saying with proper policy guidelines such accidents should not result in fatalities.
MAK asked the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to introduce a rule where all trucks are forced to have underbelly bars to prevent small vehicles crashing underneath the truck.
The association said sliding under a raised steel truck body acts like a sharp razor that cuts victims’ bodies killing them instantly.
“If there was a rear-end bar as is the practice in other countries the lives of countless deceased Kenyans would be alive today. We need sound policy formulation by NTSA,” said MAK
In 2017, NTSA issued a public notice on stalled vehicles where it directed that such vehicles must be removed within one hour, failure to that they would be stalled to the nearest police station at the owner’s cost.
NTSA further said in the notice that as soon as a vehicle stalls cautionary measures are taken to alert other road users.
The implementation of this directive appears to have stalled since our roads are always littered with stalled vehicles causing fatal accidents.
