Every death on our roads is one death too many

Last week, Uganda’s roads once again made headlines across the region as we witnessed another accident on Masaka Road in which 14 people were killed as they travelled back to their country, Tanzania, after a wedding in Kampala. Naturally, the impact was felt strongly as is wont to happen when a family suffers such tragic and traumatic experience.

The fact though is that behind every road crash fatality or injury, there is a trail and trend of events not dissimilar to others. Take the case of this accident. As details emerge, depressing truths have been unveiled by witnesses in the media.

While not all of these have been substantiated by the police investigation team, they remain indicative of the issues we must deal with, if we hope to accord the necessary respect and value for human life on our roads.

In this case alone, we can speak directly and extensively on several policy issues, many of which are properly provided for in legislature.

One is the fact that the truck was carrying nearly double the acceptable weight in cargo and that it was in bad mechanical condition.

Secondly, there was seemingly no evidence of a desperate attempt to apply brakes – often an indicator of one of two things: Either the brakes failed to engage or the driver was not alert enough to try and stop the vehicle.

This then leads us to another important issue – the quality of training of our drivers as well as lack of regulations to ensure safe passage of drivers of large commercial vehicles and passenger service vehicles.

Last is the fact that the victims of this tragedy similar to many others before them, did not receive timely and effective emergency care.

Following investigations, it would be interesting to hear from the police, on which factors that have been shared regarding causes and circumstances of this tragedy, are actually factual. Whatever the causes, what we have to deal with is another sad entry into our country’s road safety statistics, which remain alarming and should not and cannot be underestimated or ignored.

The Health Management Information System data indicates that the public health system is overwhelmed with road traffic crashes which are listed among the 10 top leading causes of hospital deaths in the country.

In 2014/2015, injuries were the fourth leading cause of hospital deaths, and more than 50 per cent of those deaths were from the road.

While infrastructural considerations are increasingly becoming more vital in efforts to reverse this, it remains important to note that traffic reports show that over 80 per cent of accidents in this country are a result of human factors, including lack of professional driving skills.

This is particularly sad when one considers that we have policies and regulations, intended to enable improved behaviour, and therefore safety of all road users or to act as deterrents to bad behaviour or practices, but often times, enforcement and implementation of policy are inadequate.

Today, the road sector is ultimately the most important mode of transportation in Uganda as it carries 97 per cent of freight cargo and 99 per cent of the passenger traffic.

It is, therefore, imperative that safety on the roads is improved as this would greatly reduce the number of fatalities, debilitating injury, loss of property and the public health burden associated with traffic injuries.

The evidenced trend begs all of us to understand that we can prevent these accidents, should we collectively dedicate a few resources to ensure policy implementation. Common sense and respect for human life are at the core of this understanding.

Surely, at whatever level of society we are at, we can see and must act on the chilling knowledge that every life lost in a road accident is one death too many.