Road accidents have claimed 1,968 lives since January, NTSA says
Nearly 2,000 people have died on Kenyan roads since January this year, the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has revealed. According to NTSA 1,968 lives have been lost this year in road accidents.
The agency said the figures represent a nine per cent increase from 1,754 last year’s fatalities, with pedestrians accounting for the highest number of fatalities.
NTSA Deputy Director for road safety, Duncan Kibogong, said Nairobi and Kiambu counties accounted for majority of these fatalities.
“Last year, Nairobi and Kiambu recorded 521 and 460 cases, respectively, with the same trend being reported this year. We have also noted that most cases, accounting for 66 per cent, are happening between 4pm and 10pm and on weekends,” said Kibogong.
He added that 84 per cent of the fatalities are men aged between 24 and 34 years.
The latest data released on Tuesday by the NTSA also show that motorcycles are to blame for most of the accidents recorded in the period under review with such cases increasing almost tenfold from 200 in 2000 to 1,576 in 2021.
Six hundred and eighty-two pedestrians were killed in accidents as compared to 573 who lost their lives in the same period last year.
After pedestrians, motorcyclists followed with 530 deaths; passengers (308), pillion passengers (185) and 28 pedal cyclists.
The data from NTSA came just hours following the death of six people died in a road accident after a bus collided with a saloon car at Molomu area on the Thika-Mwingi highway.
Police reports indicate that the bus was ferrying an unknown number of passenger while the car had five people on board. The bus is said to have collided head-on with the oncoming car between Kanyonyoo and Kivandini markets in Mwingi.
Four days ago, 11 people lost their lives in a road accident after a 14-seater matatu they were travelling in veered off the road and rolled in the same area.
On Monday, four people died after a Nairobi-bound cargo train crashed a lorry at an intersection along the Eastern Bypass in Ruiru, Kiambu. Ruiru DCIO Cyrus Ombati said that the four were among those on board the ill-fated lorry ferrying workers from a nearby construction site when the accident happened.