Boda boda 'favoured' status hurts citizenry

By the time Saturday Monitor caught up with him at Mulago Hospital Emergency Unit, he was on an improvised wheel chair, with two broken legs, blood dripping from his face and whimpering, with only his helpless wife by his side. He will at least spend the next six months bed ridden surviving on savings, if he has any, or handouts from well-wishers to help him cater for his family.

Information from Mulago Hospital shows that on average, 10 boda boda victims are received at the emergency unit every day. But Mukasa, even with two broken legs, was lucky to survive. More than 2,300 lives are lost every year in road accidents around the country and 75 per cent of them happen in Kampala alone.

Traffic officials and road safety authorities blame it on human error but the Uganda National Roads Authority, Kampala City Council and the Uganda Taxi Operators and Drivers Association (UTODA) say there is something more than that.

If you have travelled on most roads in Uganda, you should have been affected by or seen at least one of these: reckless driving and unmarked, narrow and potholed roads in major towns.
But why the continued loss of lives?

Mr Mukasa says the boda boda rider just sped off and does not know whether he will ever be brought to book since he did not even get the registration number of the bike. And that too was human error?
“The boda boda issue in Kampala is purely political,” he says.

“You try to tame the riders and someone calls warning that your activities are becoming a threat to security,” Kampala City Council Public Relations Officer Simon Muhumuza says brushing off claims of human error. “And that’s the reason why the riders behave like they are another group of untouchables in the city. They flout traffic regulations, pass anywhere a motor bike can fit, even in the presence of a traffic officer, and they will go unpunished.”

Although Police Commissioner for Traffic and Road Safety Bazil Mugisha says police calls for dialogue with all stakeholders to agree on a common position for the boda boda problem, Mr Muhumuza says insists the country is not ready to take serious and definite steps to control the motorcyclists in Kampala.

“Even the stakeholders who take decisions to gazette the bikes to places out of the city later swallow their words and instead politicise the matter.” But as politicians, police and other concerned stakeholders politic and court with the issue, 10 or more people are being admitted at Mulago every day.

A report on road safety in Uganda by Ministry of Transport commissioner for transport regulation Patrick Sanya shows that with 522,654 registered vehicles in 2009, a total of 22, 699 accidents were recorded, which killed 2, 734 people and injured 13,392.

According to the report, human error, defective vehicles and bad road conditions and environment factors account for the deaths. But the report ignores one important thing; failure by the police traffic department to implement the laws and regulations it puts up to increase on road safety.

In 2005, traffic police introduced speed governors and a law making them mandatory in all taxis, buses and trucks took effect in 2007. Later it introduced the use of seat belts, especially in public service vehicles. This was followed by crash helmets.

Still shelved
However, none of these regulations is in effect currently. They are only got off the shelf when a prominent politician dies in an accident and parliamentarians make their ‘never again’ call or when a fatal accident claims lots of lives. But as soon as the accident fades out of people’s memories, the laws and regulations are returned to the shelves.

Mr Mugisha blames it on stakeholders who lobby and who he says work against the policies set by traffic police. “If you want to enforce a regulation, bus owners and UTODA run to every office until you fail,” he says. But even with the lobbyists, Mr Mugisha’s department introduced the speed governor regulation without the capacity to enforce and monitor it. “We don’t have the capacity to even tell that the speed governors are working even buses which are supposed to be driving at 80km per hour used to run at 120km per hour but we couldn’t tell,” he says.

However, UTODA national chairman John Ndyomugyenyi says the problem lies in traffic police failing to sensitise the public and instead resort to using force to implement them. “There is no way you can lobby against a regulation that has already been passed but when you use maximum force to enforce the law, it cannot work,” he says.

“They never told us the standard of the speed governors but they just came and started enforcing it that’s why they failed.” According to Mr Ndyomugyenyi, for the speed governor regulations to be enforced, the government should stop the importation of vehicles that do not have the gadgets.

Bad roads?
Uganda National Roads Authority Public Relations Officer Daniel Alinange says accidents are no longer caused by bad roads but speeding, especially on roads that have been well tarmacked by the authority. “All roads are being worked on and we have already removed most of the black spots by either realigning the roads or enlarging them with climbing lanes to prevent head on collisions,” he says, adding that roads are not clearly marked because the sign posts are stolen by unscrupulous people.

When the seat belt regulation was passed, taxi operators went to St. Balikuddembe Market (commonly known as Owino) and bought straps, which would not even be used by the passengers. As you read this most public service vans do not have seat belts.

According to the police, this regulation too cannot be enforced as it is not on the express penalty scheme, which would allow the offenders to be charged on the spot by flashing them with penalty vouchers as is the case with other traffic offences like speeding, and this has had a direct impact on the number of accidents in the country.

The offenders have to be arrested and taken to court for charging but Mr Mugisha says traffic police do not have enough human capacity “to start taking people to court while there are issues that need to be urgently attended to on the road”.

Make partnerships
Mr Ndyomugyenyi advises that although failure to use seat belts is a negligence of passengers, traffic police should liaise with the Uganda National Bureau of Standards to agree on the standard of the belts so that drivers do not end up in St. Balikuddembe Market buying bag straps. According to Mr Mugisha, the meeting with UNBS was agreed on but it is yet to happen. “But we meet every fortnight to see that we improve on road safety. We take three things in consideration; education, engineering and enforcement.”

While as human error accounts for 80 per cent of the road accidents, according to Mr Sanya’s 2009 report, the government does not have any institution for training drivers.

Most taxi drivers learn driving on their own, forge driving permits whose photocopies they show to traffic officer when stopped. The government came up with regulations in a statutory instrument, titled "The traffic and Road Safety (Driving Schools and Driving Instructors) Regulations 2010" which came into force on July 1, 2010 to regulate driving schools but it remains to be seen whether it will yield the desired results.

Unless government moves with an iron hand and stops politicking on matters road safety, the death toll from road carnage will continue to increase every passing year, and the matter will always be subjected to debate in parliament when a prominent politician passes on.

Do you think boda bodas should continue operating without following regulations?

* Ms Anita Tibasaga, an editor at the African Field Epidemiology Network
“Boda Bodas are a necessary evil since we do not have an effective transport system. They don’t seem to have boda boda riding schools. Do they even do tests like motorists do? How do they get permits minus this? And we expect them to be less of a menace than they already are?” she asks.
“The idea of using buses and regulated commuter taxis for public transportation was great but the management of these is deplorable. The bikes are so many in towns. Government should perhaps have more stringent taxes on their importation because of their hazardous nature.”

* Mr Elis Kayemba, boda boda rider in Namungona
He says government should set regulations for someone to join the boda boda business to kick out characters.
“Some of the riders use drugs and they are always drunk that’s why there are accidents almost every day,” he says.

* Although she was hit by a speeding Boda Boda last year on her way from Makerere University, Ms Prudence Aijuka says boda bodas are still important in the city as they supplement on the transport system but government should ensure that people are safe
“They should work on the roads and enforce policies that are passed to regulate the riders. They should not allow anyone to come in the city to ride the boda bodas.”

* Mr Arnold Odeke, a businessman in Kampala
He says boda bodas should not be allowed to operate in the city centre. “Boda bodas are an inconvenience and it seems KCC doesn’t have a work plan and capacity to handle them.”