Riders choke Kenyan families with huge medical bills, deaths

May 22, 2021 will be stamped on Loreen Achieng’s memory forever. 

That Saturday afternoon, the 29-year-old Nairobi-based lawyer was heading to Lavington from Ngong Road to pick her car. The plan was to join her friends later, who were throwing her a birthday party.

The distance was short but while traffic had started piling from Lenana School towards The Junction, she decided that a boda boda would be the fastest way to go.She requested for one using an online application and in no time an old motorcycle vroomed in a throaty growl before her and then halted to pick her. 

A grim-looking man smelling of rum welcomed her into what he promised would be a ‘joyous ride’ as he twisted the right handle, letting out a wide open throttle roar after every twist. “When I saw him, his eyes told me that he was drunk.

But I lacked proper proof. When I saw he maintained his balance I gave him the benefit of doubt and got on to the bike, after all I was just going nearby though running late,” she recounts. 

As they were approaching Dagoretti Corner, a courier rider overtook them at a high speed. “We were riding along the tarmac pavement as both lanes were heavy with traffic. The rider was manoeuvering the gridlock.” 

In a quick instance, the courier rider, which had overtaken them and now ahead of them, pressed the emergency brake. “My rider never saw this coming and rammed right into it as he tried to escape in between the courier and the vehicles on the main road,” Loreen tells Healthy Nation.

Loreen says she was sent flying into the air and landed on the rough main tarmac as all her belongings scattered all over. That was the end of the party. 

Luckily because of the traffic jam, vehicles did not run over her. The rider held on to the motorbike as it slid across the road breaking some of its parts.

“I survived with a cut on my leg and the exhaust pipe burnt my thigh. The tarmac road gave me a big bruise to my right arm.” 

Traffic police who witnessed the whole incident called the three parties aside but the courier rider fled the scene. They were not able to capture his number plate or company.

“The police advised us to report the matter to Hardy Police Station and make a claim from the insurance of the rider but I opted to count my losses, thanking God I survived and went to seek treatment on my own account.”

Apart from that, she says, she was also traveling out of the country the following week and thus knew she would need a sustainable solution for herself. 

She sustained a second degree burn and three scars, eventually. She would be dressed every three days.  

She could not sit and sleep normally because the burn was huge and behind her right thigh.“It affected my performance at work and at home and cost me close to Sh50,000 to completely heal,” she says. 

The incident left Loreen traumatised.

“I escaped death by a whisker.” Since then, she has been very skeptical about boarding boda bodas.

 Along Nairobi’s Luthuli Avenue, Joseph Ndubi is standing on a pavement waiting for a friend to discuss a project on his laptop. He hangs the laptop bag on the right shoulder that faces the road. 

“It happens in a jiffy. Within no time the bag is gone with everything,” he recalls. A boda boda rider just sped towards his direction, then slowed down a bit to give the pillion passenger a chance to snatch the laptop bag.

The bike then speeds out of sight.  He is disillusioned, with nowhere to report the theft and nobody to tell the end of his meeting with his friend, probably the end of the project.

 The influx of the boda bodas on Kenyan roads can be dated back to 2008 when the government zero-rated import duty on motorcycles of up to 250 cubic capacity.This liberalisation of the motorcycle industry made them affordable to many Kenyans.

The boda boda business surged fast, with sales rising from Sh8 billion in 2014 to over Sh11 billion in 2018, according to a report by the National Crime Research Centre. 

And as they came in to fill in the gap in the transport sector, it gave an opportunity to many unemployed young men who started eking out a living by transporting goods and people.

The research indicates that some boda boda riders in Nairobi make up to Sh3,000 daily and that has been spiking demand in the purchase of bikes every month.

And while the Treasury is estimated to be collecting around Sh60 billion annually in fuel taxes from boda bodas, the sector remains with innumerable shortcomings, which are threatening to erase the gains made.

For years, the boda boda industry has gone unregulated and unchecked, making it a breeding ground for criminal gangs.

Drug trafficking, organised robbery with violence and murder have all been orchestrated with the help of boda bodas, thanks to their ability to ride through dark alleys.

The rogue nature of the industry was on display last month when a video clip of a female motorist being attacked along Wangari Maathai Road in the capital spread online, prompting arrests amid public outrage.

Most of the motorcycle riders are not trained in road safety, and a significant number of riders do not have driving licences, meaning they are not conversant with traffic rules, and this has contributed to the fast-rising motorcycle-related deaths of riders and pillion passengers.

According to a National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) report released last month, between January 1 and February 28, 2022, the number of pillion passengers killed in road accidents stood at 89, and 58 during the same period in 2021.

On the other hand, 240 motorcyclists were killed between January and February this year and 197 in 2021.Between January 1 and February 28, 2022, the total number of motorcyclist and pillion passenger fatalities stood at 329.

NTSA reported that there were 1,393,390 motorcycles registered in Kenya as at February 2018 but the exact number of these motorcycles operating as boda bodas in the country is not known and documented.

The Motorcycle Assemblers Associations of Kenya estimates that 4.8 million people depend on commercial motorcycles directly or indirectly.

But families have lost loved ones as others struggle to pay huge medical bills for both riders and pillion passengers as a result of cycle-related accidents.

This is bearing in mind that most boda boda operators lack third party insurance.The health sector also hasn’t escaped the ripple effect. Major hospitals have since set up trauma centres purposely for the treatment of the rising number of seriously injured riders and pillion passengers, thus having an adverse ripple effect to the health budget.

Last year, the Homa Bay County Teaching and Referral Hospital indicated that the boda boda riders make up a significant percentage of most accident victims, with a majority suffering bone fractures.

According to the hospital, motorcycle injuries accounted for between 30 and 35 per cent of accident-related injuries treated at the hospital, most of them including bone fractures as well as internal injuries.

Due to this, the county government had Dr Juan Ramos, an orthopaedic surgeon from Cuba, move from hospital to hospital across the county to attend to such cases.

In 2019, statistics indicated that 1,421 riders and pillion passengers died compared to 1,049 drivers and passengers who lost their lives from motor vehicle-related deaths.According to policy analyst Douglas Kivoi, the entire transport sector in Kenya requires serious policy and legal interventions to tame unruly boda boda operators.

“First of all, Kenya’s road network lacks lanes to protect bikers and motorcycles. Urban roads need to be redesigned to accommodate motorcyclists and cyclists.”

One of the short term remedies, he says, should be to get all boda boda drivers to attend driving schools.“But the national government, the National Transport Safety Authority and county governments should organise continuous training for the riders, focusing particularly on road safety and decorum,” he told Healthy Nation.

Apart from that, he says, the government should also consider establishing a database of all boda boda operators in Kenya through mandatory registration followed up with an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance.

Responding to this concern during the Jubilee government’s last budget speech last Thursday, Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said the government will put in measures where boda bodas pay insurance premiums so they can be careful on the road.