Kenya roads board enhances road safety sensitization campaign

The Kenya roads board has enhanced its sensitization campaign across the country on road safety.

The campaign targets bodaboda riders with an aim of reducing crashes that continue to occur on a day-to-day basis.

Speaking at the NEP technical college in Garissa when he presided over the graduation ceremony of 100 bodaboda, Martin Agumbi, the Finance Director at the Kenya Roads Board, said that the sensitization campaign has already been in 15 counties.

Each grandaunt was awarded a certificate, a reflector jacket and a helmet.

Agumbi regretted the high number of victims of crashes at the Kenyatta hospital’s orthopaedic wing and other hospitals across the country saying that lack of training and the absence of protective equipment’s for riding.

“As a social responsibility program for the board, we go around counties sensitizing bodaboda operators by training them and providing them with equipment for road use in order to ensure that the crashes in the country are reduced,” he said.

On his part, Nasir Mohamed Aden, Garissa county transport executive, while commending KRB for training the riders was however quick to add that the same should be extended to the many others who still don’t have the training.

He said that while the sector had proved to be a crucial one in driving the economy of the country by employing hundreds of youth, the issue of safety should also be given the seriousness it deserves if lives are to be saved and injuries reduced on the roads.

“Many operators don’t attend driving schools, have no license and are not insured. Many learn how to ride in the morning and start carrying passengers in the afternoon with virtually zero understanding of traffic regulations. The result is the high number of accidents, many of them fatal,” he said.

Nasir also used the opportunity to call on the riders to be quick to point out the few criminal elements causing insecurity in the town saying that they were the ones soiling their good name.

"We have a group of small rotten bodabodas who have been causing havoc in this town. They are involved in muggings, phone snatching and in worst case scenarios where some people have even been stabbed to death by people ridding on motorbikes,” he said.

On his part, Maxwell Otieno, the chairman of the bodaboda association in Garissa, while thanking the KRB for the training appealed for more to be trained saying that the number of those who require such training was big.

Officers from the NTSA, security agencies and the provincial administration were also present.

In March last year, the board visited Garissa to sensitize bodaboda operators on the need to maintain safety on the roads.

Boda Boda came in to fill a critical gap at a time there was limited infrastructure in many parts of Kenya.

Since then the sector has undergone some evolution in recent years, with new business models being developed.