October 25, 2002	Friday	Sha’aban 18,1423

NAIROBI: Forget lions and crocodiles — the real adventure for thrill seekers in Kenya is on the roads.

Kenya’s most deadly beasts come in the shape of speeding and dilapidated cars, giant road-hogging trucks, drunken pedestrians and the infamous multi-seat minivans called matatus which turn almost any jaunt into a hair-raising journey.

And that’s all before the carjackers appear.

Britain’s High Commission to Kenya teamed up with the country’s Ministry of Transport and the Automobile Association of Kenya this month to launch a fight against the chaos on Kenya’s roads which claims nine lives every day.

A series of television advertisements funded by Britain will warn Kenyans about the dangers they have been facing for years, such as reckless, intoxicated or preoccupied drivers, and provide tips on how to survive the east African country’s mean streets.

Minister for Transport and Communications Musalia Mudavadi said at the launch that the government was taking steps to improve Kenya’s road accident figures, which have twice the fatalities of those in South Africa and 25 times more deadly than Britain.

Most of the some 3,000 lives claimed every year are children and people in the prime of their lives.

“Their deaths are therefore a blow not only to their families, but also to the country,” Mudavadi said.

DARK NIGHTMARE: Night time game drives are a popular way to see nocturnal animals, but most Kenyans try to avoid their unlit highways where trucks, cars, matatus and even buses — many without lights — barrel along decrepit roads.

The roads are pitted with ruts and potholes, littered with dead animals and can often be washed out in places after heavy rain. On the outskirts of some cities, pedestrians cross the highways from one slum to another, sometimes wildly inebriated.

Britain’s Deputy High Commissioner to Kenya said that the diplomatic mission advises its staff to avoid driving at night outside main urban areas.

“That’s probably true of most diplomatic missions,” he said.

The Automobile Association reckons Kenya’s most dangerous road is the main highway from picturesque Lake Nakuru to Nairobi, where even seasoned motorists see moments of terror.

A Sunday night drive along the Nakuru-Nairobi highway was a nerve-wracking strain to make out shapeless masses which loomed up out of the ether on both sides of the road.

Their murky appearance was interspersed by vehicles which bedazzled the driver with glaring highbeam headlights as they zoomed into view through the windscreen and the rear view mirror.

The tension increases tenfold as one climbs out of the famed Rift Valley, where the Hell’s Gate game park lies, unnerved by the knowledge of the plunging cliffs at the side of the road which lie at a distance that can only be guessed at.

MANIC MATATUS: The first of the scheduled television advertisements tells passengers that they “have a right to live” and provides a raft of advice to those who travel by the matatu minibuses, widely considered to be the worst traffic offenders.

It says commuters should avoid crowded vehicles, use seatbelts and eschew night travel.

Long-time taxi drivers, like Jackson Macharia, echoed the concerns of most people who say the matatus are a menace on Kenyan roads, causing most of the fatalities in their hell-bent competition for passengers.—Reuters