NAIROBI, KENYA – At the orthopedic ward of Kenyatta National Hospital, Sheila Akinyi, 26, lies in a narrow bed next to another patient with a heavily bandaged leg.
Most patients in this ward are recovering from serious bone fractures and other injuries. Still, patients sleep in twos in this congested ward at Kenya’s largest public hospital, where almost all road accident survivors in the city are taken. From Akinyi and her bedmate’s banter, it’s clear they’ve been together for some time.
“I was brought here by the police three weeks ago,” Akinyi says. “They told me I was lucky to be alive, as most of the people involved in the accident died on the spot.”
Akinyi says she was on her way home after a long day’s work at the end of June. She joined a group of about seven pedestrians waiting to cross the road in Mbotela estate, a suburb in Nairobi, Kenya's capital.
Just as they were about to cross, three motorbike riders who were trying to avoid a police roadblock tore into the group at lightening speed, she says. Most of the pedestrians were thrown into a ditch, suffering fatal injuries.
Akinyi, a mother of two, says she was lucky to escape with only a broken thighbone. Still, she says her life has suddenly come to a stop because it’ll take months of physiotherapy until she can walk again.
Thousands of Kenyans die in road accidents every year. Police attribute the high number of accidents to careless driving and lenient laws. Courts do hand out jail time and fines, but citizens say they are not harsh enough to serve justice and to encourage safe driving. A new bill that aims to change that is sailing through Parliament. But some owners and drivers of public transportation vehicles reject the bill, calling the penalties too harsh and predicting it will lead to corruption.
More than 3,000 people died in road crashes in 2011 across the country, according to Kenya Police’s Traffic Department. The department has largely attributed the traffic accidents to careless driving and lenient laws that allow motorists to return to the roads even after committing serious traffic offenses.
The male ward of Kenyatta National Hospital is as congested as the neighboring female ward. Inside, Solomon Kimaru limps around with a heavily plastered leg. A sling hangs from his neck to support his hand. A cart puller, Kimaru says he was going about his normal business of transporting goods from one part of the city to the other when a motorist hit his cart from behind.
“My leg and hand were severely fractured,” he says. “But the driver was kind enough to stop and bring me to the hospital. Some drivers flee, leaving you to bleed to death.”
Richard Lesiyampe, director of Kenyatta National Hospital, says the hospital spends 10 million shillings ($120,000) per week to treat road accident victims. The accident victims occupy most of the 30 beds in the hospital’s critical care unit at the expense of open-heart surgery and kidney transplant patients.
Patrick Lumumba, head of the Kenya Police Service Traffic Department, says that every day, at least two pedestrians are killed in Nairobi in traffic accidents, which occur mostly at night.
During weekends and at the end of the month, the number rises to five, mostly due to drunk driving. But Lumumba says that pedestrians must also take some of the blame, as many don’t use the designated crossing areas or observe road signs.
Lumumba attributes the high number of accidents to weak punishments for breaking Kenya’s traffic laws.
“The fines are very low, and this encourages Kenyan motorists to break traffic laws with impunity,” Lumumba says. “Even after causing death through careless driving, these people still find their way back to the roads.”
On a Monday in July, a court in Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa heard two cases of drivers charged with killing people as a result of careless and dangerous driving.
Joel Muchemi, a matatu or bus driver, received a conviction after admitting in court to killing two pedestrians accidentally earlier this year. He asked the judge for forgiveness, saying he never meant to kill them.
But Judge James Omburah said matatu drivers frequently killed innocent people through dangerous driving so Muchemi deserved to be punished to serve as an example for other careless drivers.
Many, however, said the 16-month jail sentence that Muchemi received was too light. The ruling elicited murmurs in the courtroom and sharp reactions among members of the public after the court session.
“The judge was too lenient on him,” Johnston Mwadime, a relative of one of the victims who died in the accident, said outside the courtroom. “In a year and a half, he will be out of jail and certainly back on the roads to kill more people.”
In the same court, a truck driver was charged with dangerous driving that caused the deaths of 14 people. The driver, Tobias Ngure, was driving the truck along the highway from Mombasa to Nairobi when he allegedly rammed into a matatu, killing everyone on board. It was the worst accident of the week.
Ngure denied the charges in court and was given a bond of 1 million shillings ($12,000). Since he could not raise the money, he was remanded to the local prison until Aug. 20, when the case will be heard.
In a bid to end the injuries and deaths from traffic accidents, a lawmaker has proposed a draft of stronger laws that have received support from a majority of his colleagues and have sailed through Parliament. The Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2012, proposed by member of Parliament Jakoyo Midiwo, has been sent to a parliamentary committee for scrutiny before final approval by Parliament and the president.
The bill proposes that people who drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs are liable for penalties up to 500,000 shillings ($6,000), 10 years in jail or both, Midiwo says. Under current laws, offenders receive a fine of 10,000 shillings ($120) or eight months in prison.
Because of perennial traffic congestion in Nairobi, motorists – especially matatu drivers – drive onto sidewalks in a rush to drop off or collect more passengers. The consequences of this are sometimes disastrous as oblivious pedestrians are knocked down dead or hauled into ditches. To tame such drivers, Midiwo proposes that the offenders receive fines of 30,000 shillings ($360) or three months in jail for driving off the road.
Midiwo also proposes that causing death through reckless driving be considered a criminal offense and that those convicted should be sentenced to life imprisonment.
In addition, the bill penalizes unauthorized driving of public service vehicles – both the driver and the person who enabled them to drive – with a jail sentence of up to 10 years, a fine of up to 500,000 shillings ($6,000) or both. Drivers must receive approval from the Transport Licensing Board to operate a publice service vehicle.
Midiwo says the bloodbath on Kenyan roads has become too much, and it is time to take action.
“Too many Kenyans are dying on our roads, and the laws are meant to deter people, including myself, from breaking traffic rules,” Midiwo said in a phone interview. “I lived in America for 13 years, and I saw such harsh laws working.”
But some say the bill is too harsh or won’t be effective.
Motorists associations, matatu owners and crew members say the suggested laws will lead to a rise in corruption on the roads. Transparency International ranked the Kenyan Police as the most corrupt institution in the country in The East African Bribery Index 2011, with various reports of officers taking bribes from motorists to let them off the hook.
“The police are known to be corrupt beyond cure,” says James Maina, a matatu driver who is against the proposed laws. “They make up charges against you if you fail to bribe them. With the harsh laws, most drivers will prefer giving the bribe than being taken to court.”
But Lumumba denies this, calling it a misconception by the public.
“Let the proposed laws be implemented first before we can comment on whether they are going to promote corruption or not,” he says. “That is just fear of the unknown.”
Simon Kimutai, the chairman of the Matatu Owners Association, an organization that lobbies for the welfare of public transport proprietors, also opposes the bill, asking instead for stricter enforcement of current laws.
“We don’t need new laws,” he says. “The existing laws are enough to curb road accidents, but they are not being enforced. What we need is the streamlining of the entire public transport system from issuance of driving licenses to inspection of vehicles. Currently, people can obtain driving licenses without undergoing a driving test.”
Lumumba denies this. He says no one has ever been issued a license without passing a driving test.
Kimutai further says that the owners of public service vehicles, which routinely incur damage in accidents, have been encouraging their employees to observe road safety rules. He also calls upon the public to take charge of their own safety on the road by observing traffic rules and speaking out whenever they are driven dangerously.
