I have come to the rather sad conclusion that we are not yet ready as a nation to use the Thika Super highway, that expensive piece of real estate that cost us a pretty sum and lots of aggravation for the four years that it was under construction, or any other really great piece of architectural road project for that matter!! The Thika Road project including pedestrian bridges, service roads, vehicle overpasses and underpasses, pedestrian and cycling lanes, road furniture works and street lighting etc while a sight to behold seems to have brought out some of our most primitive and Stone Age tendencies amongst us!
Why have I come to this conclusion? Picture this if you may.
It is rush hour and you are finally and comfortably out of the maddening Nairobi city centre traffic jam and on your way home. At the Globe Cinema section, the nightmare begins with a traffic gridlock caused by impatient drivers not wanting to yield at the Kipande Road junction and drivers using the wrong outside lane and then forcing their way back into the lane intended for traffic proceeding to Ngara.
At Ngara you encounter a hoard of people jostling for position to cross the road on foot a scant 50 yards from the pedestrian overpass doing their best to block traffic and get run over by a vehicle in the process. To add to this confusion,’mkokoteni’ pushers are struggling to maneuver their carts piled high with assorted merchandise through the vehicular traffic oblivious to the danger to themselves and the other roads users while the cacophony is stepped up by ‘matatus’ picking and dropping off passengers willy nilly on the road ignoring the bus stage a few yards away.
As you proceed towards Pangani, the same foolhardiness continues to manifest itself on that stretch of road with pedestrians casually crossing the road where cars are speeding past, while cyclists nonchalantly cycle their way along the road competing with the buses and trucks speeding dangerously close to them while studiously ignoring the cycling lanes intended for their use. As you approach Pangani, matatus have converted part of the road into a bus stage and impeding the flow of traffic seems normal to them. Further down the road, someone’s car has broken down or most likely run out of fuel and the hazard lights are blinking to warn other road users to be aware. There are no warning triangles as required by law, placed some distance before the vehicle. Traffic is flowing but with no formula because the slow traffic is on the fast lane, while the faster traffic is forced to bob and weave between lanes to maintain the speed required.
The speed limit is a fallacy as any casual glance will tell you because that bus just charged by at a speed way in excess of 100 kms/hr while the speed limit is 80 kms/hr for those monolithic public service vehicles while that decrepit pick up that has no business being on the road in teh first place is struggling to maintain a speed of 50 kms/hr and it is in the fast lane, the wrong lane for it!
All along the highway, all the rules and regulations of safe motoring are being ignored by all and sundry motorists, cyclists, pedestrians…………ALL! From the pedestrians walking on the roads and vehicle overpasses and underpasses, to the motorcyclist riding on the pedestrian walkway against the flow of traffic, to the cyclists and 'mkokoteni' guys oblivious to the dangers of using the vehicle overpasses as convenient shortcuts to where they are going, to the myriad of public service vehicles and private motorists who stop on the highway to drop off and collect god knows what and then speed off at a mad cap pace to catch up with lost time............ perhaps!
Let me also not forget the pedestrians jumping over safety barriers to make a mad dash across the road dicing and dueling with death in the process and inconveniencing the driving motorist. All of us have a role to play in terms of safe usage of these infrastructural masterpieces however harried and busy we are and we should take the trouble to understand and use them responsibly lest the usual refrain ‘serekali ingilie’ starts once the death toll escalates due to the carelessness exhibited by all of us.
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