This archive report was first published on 17 December 2019.
Published on December 17, 2019, a day when road accidents were a common sight along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.
Driving down the 485km highway, one encounters numerous trucks with all sorts of cargo, ranging from containerised trucks to petroleum products-hauling trucks and those delivering raw materials to manufacturing plants or goods to markets.
However, the statistics are worrying, with accident per kilometre and fatality per accident ratios being particularly scary. A majority of these accidents involve a truck or another long-distance vehicle, with smaller vehicles often bearing the brunt of the fatalities.
According to recent data from Kenya Railways, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) has scored an impressive A for safety. The railway operator moved over a million passengers on the railway line, with less than one fatality attributed to the SGR.
For an equivalent number of passengers, buses and conventional motor vehicles would have contributed to much higher fatalities. On the cargo front, while the SGR has struggled to break even, its accident per containers freighted ratio is also impressive.
For insurers, it would be interesting to find out how much is paid out for accidents along the road involving cargo goods and long distance buses and trucks as well as hospitalisation and life premium payments.
