I’ve discussed the trepidations of driving
around East Africa in previous posts and the insane nature of that, but one
thing that wasn’t really highlighted before was the lack of awareness not only
of the drivers, but of the pedestrians. Car
growth is growing exponentially, and has risen from 5,000 cars in the 1950’s
when the Queen opened the Owen Falls Dam to over 5 million today. However the average Ugandan doesn’t have
access to this type of transport and will walk to work, or to collect water or
to visit his local bottle shop. In the
UK you are raised to respect the road and bred with the Highway Code running
through your veins. You may have learnt
this from your parents, or maybe from an 80’s cartoon of a young hedgehog also
learning the basics of where to cross and to look both ways. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for East
Africa which has a terrible record for road fatalities. After narrowly avoiding adding to these
statistics last Saturday it got me thinking.
As a driver it seems to be far too common for me to have to either
swerve around a child running across the road at the last moment, or brake
suddenly to allow a man to pass diagonally across a busy intersection.
It’s not even that there isn’t the
infrastructure available for the pedestrian.
Although there aren’t huge numbers of traffic lights with pedestrian
features, or zebra crossings or even overpass bridges, these do exist but
either aren’t trusted by pedestrians or not understood by the general
populace. As car usage increases more
badly taught drivers take to the streets often without a single driving lesson
and certainly with the mind-set that now they have a car they have afforded a
more powerful position on the road and demand the respect of the
pedestrian. Clearly this shouldn’t be
the case but this transport hierarchy is seen throughout with bicycles near the
bottom of the pile, trucks towards the top and Presidential Convoys hanging over
everyone.
In the aviation industry early on you learn
to respect certain different types of aircraft with those most vulnerable given
the most protection from the other larger and faster machines. This is also reflected on the water where
horse power gives way to sail power, and yet it doesn’t appear to occur on the
roads. Once again in the UK there is a
growing trend towards peddle power in the cities and countryside however
respect for this transport decision is still hard to process for certain road
users and once again this all comes down to education. Each month in London I would hear of the horrendous
death of a cyclist typically being struck by a truck or white van and more
often than not I suspect that this was due not only to the driver of the motor
vehicle but also the street smarts of the cyclist.
I’ll be the first to admit that as a
cyclist I would sometimes flout the laws and skip a red light now and again;
however I would do so with total confidence that there was no danger. When I was growing up in Derbyshire in the
heart of the UK at the age of ten I was forced by my school to take a cycling
proficiency course to ensure that I was aware of the road, other road users and
the complicated system of lights and signs – in effect The Highway Code. If I’m honest as a ten year old this was
seriously uncool and boring, but something must have seeped in as this section
of the UK driving test was a breeze and I passed first time with no issue. I’m fairly sure that has to be something to
do with an early insight and education of the rules of the road.
So what has all this have to do with a
small boy from ‘the village’ in rural Uganda you ask. Well I think that with an early grasp of the
Highway Code and lessons not only in reading and writing, but also of how to use
the highways and byways correctly, may lead to a better understanding, respect
and discipline of all road users in later life. It also may reduce the number of deaths from
road usage around Africa and who knows; remove the arrogance of some car
drivers higher up the political ladder.
I’m told that up until 2009 the British
Highway Code also pertained to Uganda, however there is now a local version
available written by the Ministry of Works and Transport. Although as was well pointed out by my source
at The Monitor “it is hard to believe
this is intended for Uganda. If it was,
boda bodas carrying more than one passenger would have been history by now, not
to mention those carrying small children on the petrol tank.”
