The long-distance traveller, and a fresh dance with Michuki’s ghost

Passengers stranded for hours outside Utange Bus Station in Mombasa on January 3, 2014. Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure Michael Kamau said, The National Transport and Safety Authority, will consider applications for night operations from public transport operators who have fully complied with set regulations. PHOTO | FILE 

In Summary

• Now if you look west to Uganda whose roads are as lawless as Kenya’s and Tanzania’s, there are remarkably few bus accidents at night – but many during the day
• The solution here then is not a ban on night travel, but to force bus operators to use more than one driver, and to require mandatory rest stops
• The average number of accident victims the hospital’s emergency room used to get on New Year’s Day was 30, he told me. In the New Year of the first of the “Michuki Rules”, there was not a single accident victim in their emergency room!
• To start with, enact a new consumer protection law to make it easy for relatives of people killed and injured in bus and matatu accidents to sue operators, and increase the awards to between Sh25 million and Sh50 million per death

 

By Charles Onyango-Obbo
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At first, the government was understood to have banned long-distance night passenger vehicles.

The aim was to reduce the alarming rate of accidents that is turning Kenya’s roads into an extensive human butcher shop.

Well, yes and no, Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure Michael Kamau has now clarified.

The National Transport and Safety Authority, he said, will consider applications for night operations from public transport operators who have fully complied with set regulations.

A total ban would be one of the most anti-capitalist actions by the Jubilee government. But other countries like Tanzania, have had such a ban for years.

Now if you look west to Uganda whose roads are as lawless as Kenya’s and Tanzania’s, there are remarkably few bus accidents at night – but many during the day.

Since all these countries have rogue drivers, corrupt traffic police, and the ratios of their good to bad roads are about the same, the explanation must be elsewhere.

My sense is that the size of the countries partly explains the differing night accident rates. Because Uganda is relatively tiny, a bus driver will reach his destination before he gets exhausted and sleepy at the steering wheel.

However, because it is smaller, the drivers have a bigger incentive to rush and get to their destination before the clubs open, so they can go and hang out with the boys, which makes travelling by bus between 4pm and 7pm very dangerous in Uganda.

The Kenyan and Tanzanian long-distance bus drivers will get tired, whichever way they try to slice it, because of the distances they have to cover.

The solution here then is not a ban on night travel, but to force bus operators to use more than one driver, and to require mandatory rest stops. For bus operators this is bad business, because it increases turn-around time and wage costs.

Which brings us to the late John Michuki. I was very uncomfortable with Michuki’s views on human rights, and most other things, when he was minister in the Kibaki government.

ADMIRABLE NATURE

But I admired his ability to get things done, his firm hand, and scorn for populism. When he took on the powerful matatu and bus industries, it was a fight any other man would have lost.

But he won it. One reason was that Michuki had a thoroughly intimidating theory of political war. Most generals choose to fight wars on their terms and chosen battlefields.

Michuki chose to fight it in the matatu and bus operators’ battlefield – on the road.

Generally Michuki had the same controversial view of Africans as the colonialists; that the African’s eyes, ears, and brains are in his buttocks.

The colonialists believed that the best way to get Africans to see sense was to cane their buttocks. Michuki adapted the same approach to modern times.

He didn’t cane, but made opposition to his reforms very financially painful. The operators blinked first.

Combined with the breathalyser, the first year of the “Michuki Rules” cut down deaths dramatically. One statistic I will never forget was given to me by a doctor friend at the Aga Khan Hospital.

The average number of accident victims the hospital’s emergency room used to get on New Year’s Day was 30, he told me. In the New Year of the first of the “Michuki Rules”, there was not a single accident victim in their emergency room!

DOUBLE THE PAIN

Therefore rather than total or selective night bans, the way to deal with rogue passenger transporters, would be to adopt “Michuki Rules II” – double the pain and financial cost.

To start with, enact a new consumer protection law to make it easy for relatives of people killed and injured in bus and matatu accidents to sue operators, and increase the awards to between Sh25 million and Sh50 million per death.

And where a matatu or bus driver is found to be at fault, or their vehicle to be in lousy mechanical condition, operators should not be allowed to repair and return them to the roads. They should be taken to the yard and chopped up.

In fact, every matatu, bus, or indeed ordinary vehicle, that kills a pedestrian through recklessness driving should be cut up.

Businesspeople give 101 per cent attention if you hit deep in their pockets. Mr Kamau, try that and within a year, Kenya will have the safest roads in Africa.