Eight Perish In Nairobi Eastern Bypass Accident

Eight people were killed on Sunday, 10^th November 2019, at Nairobi’s Eastern Bypass in a road accident involving a truck and two matatus.

The cause of the accident was not clear as police and witnesses had different things to say concerning the accident.

Police reported that the truck driver had been signaled by police to stop, an instruction he defied, before ramming into the matatus causing the fatal accident.

Witnesses, however, said that the traffic police officers were at fault as they forced the lorry to come to an abrupt stop, which made the truck driver lost control of the vehicle.

Angry locals who witnessed the accident flocked the busy road armed with stones and throwing them at police officers present at the scene, forcing them (police) to flee the scene for safety and motorists advised to use alternative roads.

According to reports, most of the occupants of the two matatus involved in the accident were women believed to have been en route for church events.

The accident comes in the wake of many campaigns put up in an effort to curb road accidents by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA).

Statistics show that the number of deaths and injuries linked to road accidents continues to rise every year, despite the measures put in place by the government.

According to the NTSA report, 2,735 people died in accidents by October 2019, a rise of 400 people from 2,335 who died by the same period in 2018.

It is also said that more men die in road accidents as compared to women, as 2,263 (83.3 percent) who have died in this year’s accidents were men, compared to 459 women.

NTSA also reports that in most accidents, it is the pedestrians that get killed as their figures show that by October, 1,049 pedestrians had died compared to 262 drivers, 815 motorcyclists, and 554 passengers.

Cabinet Secretary for Interior, Dr. Fred Matiang’i said, that accidents continue to claim more lives despite the measures put in place is an alarming thing.

Dr. Matiang’i stressed the fact that in all accidents, pedestrians are the most affected as of the estimated 3,000 annual deaths linked to accidents, 40 percent of the victims are pedestrians.

The CS said that as the festive period approaches, knowing that it is the period when most accidents occur, security agencies in the country are ready with measures to curb the menace.

“Accidents take us many steps backward as a country in terms of GDP contribution as the economic costs of the same is three to five percent of GDP. It is the cause of many disability cases, health burden, and poverty due to loss of breadwinners,” said CS Matiang’i.