Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki yesterday announced a nationwide crackdown to curb road accidents.
Speaking in Kisumu, the CS said the crackdown will target all unroadworthy vehicles (private, public, institutional), drivers, riders, and pedestrians.
The CS instructed law enforcement agencies across the country to develop and implement a nationwide program for Traffic Law enforcement, aiming to curb rising cases of deaths and injuries arising from road traffic accidents.
“We must obey traffic rules, we must all work together and clean our roads from all manner of rogue road users who are careless,” the CS said.
“It’s up to Kenyans to save ourselves because these deaths are too much and premature.”
The Traffic Department of the Kenya Police Service and the National Transport Safety Authority will concurrently conduct the crackdown.
CS Kindiki stressed that officers must vigorously enforce the law and combat reported corruption on the roads. He noted that corruption significantly contributes to road traffic accidents.
“People driving unroadworthy vehicles end up giving bribes and they get away without being punished and in the process we end up having these accidents,” Kindiki said, adding: “Any law enforcement officer engaging in corruption on the roads or elsewhere be severely punished.”
The CS observed that deaths from road accidents are rivaling those caused by serious epidemics.
“We had Covid-19, a terrible epidemic in two years, and the people who died out of the pandemic were over 4,000. Yet in one year alone 4,324 died out of crashes. This means that this problem is worse than the pandemics,” Kindiki said.
The CS reported that in 2024, Kenya recorded 4,324 road fatalities, while in 2023, 4,690 people died from accidents.
