The new Traffic report has shown that over 832 road accidents happened between 11th -22nd April 2023; claiming 148 lives.
While reading the report on Monday during the Police press briefing at Police Headquarters in Naguru, the Traffic Police spokesperson Faridah Nampiima said that of the 832, 137 were fatal, 465 were serious and 230 were minor.
“Out of the 832 crashes, we have a total of 819 victims out of these 148 people died, and 671 sustained serious injuries. According to our report, pedestrians have the highest number of victims, followed by motorcyclists, followed by passengers on motorcycles, followed by passengers on other vehicles, then passengers in light omnibuses and drivers,” she said.
Nampiima noted that such a high number of accidents in a short period of time was caused by a number of factors such as; careless overtaking, overspeeding, sudden turning, following too close, neglecting right of way, sudden entrance into the road without caution, brake failure because of the condition of the car, careless pedestrians, driving under influence of alcohol, and unknown causes.
She stressed that currently, the number of pedestrian losing their lives in accidents is increasing and cautioned that whoever uses the road to be mindful.
“The number of pedestrians dying in traffic accidents is increasing at a high speed, therefore we call upon all people walking on roads especially busy roads to always be mindful of their lives and be very cautious. Even those people who normally sell things on the road sides must give way to pedestrians so that they avoid walking on the roads. Even those driving vehicles on occupied roads are called upon to respect the pedestrians’ walkways,” she said.
Nampiima however cautioned that Traffic Police are more determined to ensure that drivers respect all traffic rules and because of this campaign, from 11th-22nd April 2023, over 17552 traffic offenders were arrested and given Express Penalty tickets on various traffic offences in different parts of the country.
“Those arrested for reckless driving were 2884, driving a vehicle in a dangerous mechanical condition 3487, driving on invalid driving licenses 1370, driving vehicles on the road without Third party insurance 1307, those got speeding were 674, arrested for not wearing seat belts were 1010, driving without warning signs were 459, driving while using handheld mobile phones were 304, driving vehicles with obscured number plates 79, driving in breach of licenses on the insurances on their vehicles 270, riding motorcycle without wearing crush elements were 950, riding motorcycle without a valid driving permit was 2702, carrying more than one passenger on a motorcycle were 218 among others,” she said.
Meanwhile, Traffic Police have also warned dealers in charcoal transportation to ensure that their vehicles have metal barriers to avoid obstruction.
“All the people operating those vehicles must ensure that they have those metal barriers meant to control the road on those vehicles. Any road carried out of the tray is a danger to other road users. So such vehicles must have barriers that will cover their load and if a vehicle is caught not having it, will be fined Shs200,000 on the arrest,” she said.
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