The love language of shameful silence

One of the meanings of "careful" is "making sure of avoiding potential danger, mishap, or harm; cautious", while "careless" means "not giving sufficient attention or thought to avoiding harm or errors". One of the hallmarks of a careful person (or institution) is pride in their name. Careful people will not hide their identity (unless they are careful crooks). In the public service, this who take time t think through their decisions, consult widely when taking decisions, and speak honestly when taking responsibility for their actions, rarely see the need to hide their identities. Their intention is almost always to avoid danger, harm or mishaps.

Careful is not the image that comes to mind when you think of the Kenya Roads Board or its roads authorities, the Kenya National Highways authority, Kenya Urban Roads Authority or Kenya Rural Roads Authority. It is no longer the image that comes to mind when one thinks of the National Transport and Safety Authority or the Traffic Department of the Kenya Police Service. Most road users in Kenya think of these institutions, and their managers and boards of directors, as careless. The death, injury and destruction of property caused by their carelessness is all the proof one needs.

Many factors have contributed to the death, injury and damage caused on our roads. The corruption of the Police and NTSA when it comes to the operation of roadworthy or unroadworthy motor vehicles on our roads comes to mind. The incredibly poor driving skills of the majority of motorists, including drivers of public service vehicles and other kinds of commercial vehicles, cannot be ignored either. The fatalistic risk-taking by other road users can also not be gainsaid.

But of all the factors that contribute to the current dire situation, one of the major ones is that the roads we have are badly designed. Perhaps the design on paper applied the latest techniques adopted in other jurisdictions that have lower rates of death, injury or destruction. But designs on paper don't save lives. IN Kenya, praise is always given for perfect documentary designs. There's that apocryphal anecdote of Kenyan policy documents being successfully implemented by Asian Tigers while the very same policies gather dust in ministry archives. The same may be true when it comes to our roads.

Maybe the implementation of those old designs is sacrificed at the altar of greed, corner-cutting and outright theft of funds and construction material. But the fact that when you try, for example, to find out who the members of the KENHA board are, you end up with a blank page tells you everything you need to know about the nature of the institution. It is not proud of its work. It is not proud of its oversight bodies. It is not proud of its managers. And it is deeply, deeply ashamed of the quality of its work. Why wouldn't they hide their identities?

Very few are nowadays unaware that Kenyan roads are not fit for purpose. Not even for the motorists for whom the roads are ostensibly reserved for. The shiny new elevated expressway is very good at connecting the various exits along its 27 km stretch, but every exit leads to a traffic jam. Thika Super Highway is a funnel that brings clogged traffic into the CBD in the morning and sends it back to Githurai in the evening. Langata Road has a beautiful interchange at T-Mall but only so that it can deliver yo to the Nyayo HighriseEstate/Nyayo Stadium traffic jam in all haste. What all these somewhat impressive feats of civil engineering lack is any sort of common sense. Little or no accommodation is made for Nairobi's legion of pedestrians, nduthists, mkokoteni pullers, and brave-beyond-belief cyclists. Our focus on cars and car drivers has not solved the "traffic problem" and has, instead, made the roads quite unsafe.

So I revisit the shame of the Kenya Roads Board, its roads authorities, the Traffic Department, NTSA and the men and women who make decisions that cause untold harm and damage. They hide their faces because they now that they cannot afford to admit that they are the charlatans who have led to so much death and injury. They hide their shame because in Kenya, shameful silence is their love language.

Change or die

A video was published on social media showing the exact moment 25 people died. The bus they were traveling in attempted to cross a swollen river at an unsafe drift road crossing. It is reported that the driver of the ill-fated bus hesitated for a long time before being urged forward by his passengers who were on their way to a wedding. It is also reported that some of the passengers argued that God would keep them safe. This terrible tragedy was avoidable.

In the same week, a speeding driver who is suspected to have been driving while drank hit and killed two motorcycle riders. It is reported that the dangerous driver is the son of a senior policeman. It is also reported that police procedures at the scene of a road traffic accident in which fatalities are reported were not followed. The dangerous driver was allowed to leave the scene of the accident without recording a statement. The vehicle that he was driving was not towed to the nearest police station. The policemen at the scene of the accident did not alert anyone about the accident. This tragedy could have been avoided. The events that followed could have been prevented.

There are many things that contribute to the dangerousness of driving on Kenyan roads. Some are highlighted in these tragedies: poor road design; poor mitigation of risks; poor driver training; and abuse of office by privileged road users. Take the manner in which the alleged son of the senior policeman was treated. He is not the first one to get away with traffic offences because of who he is or who he is connected to. It has become an ingrained part of our national DNA that senior government officers (and they friends and families) are not to be strictly bound by the law, even when their actions cause death and serious injury.

We have a word for this: impunity. It pervades every aspect of our lives. It is excused. It is encouraged. And as we have seen, it cause death, injury and destruction on a colossal scale. The single most important contributor to the contempt for the law that infects Kenyans' lives is the impunity of governmental officials, their families and friends. Why should the hoi polloi follow the law when the men and women who have sworn to uphold the law flout it with impunity and protect their friends and family when they flout it? Why should the hoi polloi obey the law when the forces of law and order conspire to defeat the ends of justice when the high and mighty commit offences? If our governmental leaders will not be held to account, if they will conspire with other governmental officials to undermine the law, and thereby defeat the ends of justice while causing death and injury, there is no reasonable cause to believe that the people they govern or lead will do the same. Widespread hypocrisy is simply not a good way to govern. And when it comes to road traffic accidents, fatalities and injuries, this kind of hypocrisy is deadly.

The Kitui tragedy was avoidable and preventable. Avoidable because the driver of the ill-fated bus should have turned back and found an alternative route to his destination and if such a route was not to be found, returned to where the journey began. No amount of exhortations from his passengers should have override his initial instincts to avoid the crossing.

It was preventable if only the crossing had a proper bridge or, if such a bridge was not to be had, a barrier across the crossing during the period the crossing was dangerous to use. One of the episodes on the Australian reality series Outback Truckers shows the lengths local authorise in the Australian bush will go to prevent tragedies on the roads. In this episode, the long-haul trucker comes to a similar drift crossing that is swollen; the river has broken its banks and is swirling over the drift crossing. The local authorities have posted a barrier across it and a notice barring its use. Our trucker is the only one on the road. He chooses safety and finds an alternative route. Our bus driver should have done the same. The Kitui County Government should have posted warnings not to use the crossing.

The Kitui county government's apathy, as that of the roads' authority and National Transport and Safety Authority, are responsible fr the deaths. The bus driver and his passengers are not the only cause of the tragedy. Because no one will truly be held to account for this kind of apathy, it is almost certain that the Kitui county government, the roads' authority and NTSA will not change how they govern the roads; the drift road crossing will remain dangerous when the river waters swell; and eventually, tragedy will strike again. The impunity we have permitted to metastasise when it comes to law enforcement on the roads has infected the design, construction and use of roads. If we don't change, death and injury will continue to stalk us wherever we go.