Put the brakes on the traffic carnage

The recent spate of fatal accidents has prompted bold safety declarations from the tzars of transport and traffic, but every word they have uttered this time has already been said many times before over several decades. And safety has not improved. In a recent article you said the right answers will not be found unless we ask the right questions. What are these right questions?

You rightly emphasise the maxim that “doing the same things, in the same way, will lead to the same result”.

Repeating unsuccessful dogma will not solve the problem. So first we must recognise the need for “strategic change.”

The right questions will draw the road map to identifying real problems and designing the solutions. 

The absolute priority. 

Question One: What is the purpose of transport and traffic management?

The fundamental purpose of transport is to optimise the movement of people and goods. That is not easy, but it is that simple. On the roads, the best and most effective use of whatever resources we have will be achieved by smooth and swift traffic flow.

Everything that planners, administrators, legislators, enforcers and users do should be designed and measured against that aim.

Above all else. If you want to change the behaviour of “who” you manage, you need to change “what” you manage and “how” you manage...with transparency and accountability. 

What is blocking flow?

Question Two: Right now, what factors are doing most to improve flow, and what factors are doing most to disrupt it?

Let us be clear that much is being done on both these fronts. Hundreds of billions of shillings have been spent on new and upgraded roads and on the new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).

But those new roads have been riddled with unmarked and ill-designed speed bumps, and the massive “alternative” cargo capacity the railway should provide has been more than matched by an ever-increasing number of larger and slower road trucks that obstruct and clog and damage the main highways.

Why? There are dozens of parallel examples, but let those two suffice for now.

The overall impression is that planners and administrators blame every accident on driver competence or vehicle condition and implement penalties accordingly.

They never apportion blame to the quality of tuition, testing integrity, anomalous vehicle licensing specifications, defects in signage and road marking, the risk-inducing imperatives of public transport business models, road surfaces and drainage, road repair, or the size, shape, marking and location of speed bumps.

Or even the training and briefing of traffic police (see adjacent article), the quality of parts and repairs, the sanctity of road reserves, the inevitably lethal cocktail of “mixed” traffic, and so on.

What has been done about any of those?

A safer environment.

Question Three: What price are we prepared to pay (financially and logistically) to improve the safety of the existing and evolving systems? 

Contrary to political vox pop, safety is secondary to the essential purpose of transport and traffic on which the entire national function depends. But it remains very important.

Happily, improving the smooth and swift flow of traffic will do more than any other measure to reduce accidents.

At root, most accidents are a consequence (direct and indirect) of the factors that disrupt flow.

Get the answers to Questions One and Two right, and safety will significantly improve, even without additional intervention. With those changes it will improve. Without those changes, it will not.

Yes, every accident involves a driver and a vehicle. But there is no clear correlation between the technical competence of the driver and the condition of the vehicle which determines how many people get killed.

And even where delinquent conduct or unroadworthy condition are to blame, punishment of “minor” offences or more cumbersome inspection is not the solution.

As everybody knows, many of the most experienced drivers are the most badly behaved. Think matatu. Think manamba. Think boda boda.

The right question is “why” is the vehicle defective or the driver’s attitude so bad? It is the solution to that which should guide policy priorities.

Look at the business models that impel PSVs to risky conduct. Don’t re-test them.

Test the driving schools and test centres.