Day Seven: A moment with road crash victims, boda riders
By Joe Walker
Wow! The day started so bright and early. As always, we were out of where we slept at 5.30am, in this case, Kigumba. Our first stop was at Kiryadongo, where we had an interaction with boda boda riders and later visited Kiryadongo Hospital, where we had a moment to share with victims of road crashes.
If you have not been in such a situation and you visit that world, where people have suffered road crashes, you would think twice about the way you drive. Several of them have been stuck in the hospital for days with nobody to take care of them. Others have had their loved ones transferred to other hospitals, to Lacor Hospital, Gulu and others to Mulago Hospital. It’s a painful scene, one that can make rethink the way you behave as a road user.
After that soul searching moment, we walked on to our next destination, Bweyale town Council. This place is home to more than 98,000 people making it one of the most populated towns in Uganda. What hits you first as you enter it is the number of boda boda riders; it’s crazy. Bodas are literally packed at every point of the road all the way through the single road in the town, which is also the Gulu Highway.
As we walked to our first meeting in Bweyale town with the taxi drivers, we witnessed a near fatal crash.
The incident occurred when a speeding car squeezing between two buses parked on either side of the road knocked a boda rider carrying two people. One of the victims who was badly injured was rushed to a nearby health facility for care. The buses were parked at a very busy area right outside the taxi park which is adjacent to a mini roadside market just before a busy T-junction.
From our interactions with the taxi drivers, market vendors and boda riders, Bweyale is not any special from other towns that we’ve been through; it has congested roads, poor signage or no signage at all, faint markings or no markings at all, no pedestrian walkways and the chaotic boda riders.
Despite the presence of a taxi park with clear leadership, taxis are still loading and offloading on the congested highway. Their leaders say it’s the only way they can compete with the “highway” taxis which don’t enter the park. I believe though, that they can do something to stop this madness. If their strictness on driver qualifications and experience requirement is to be believed, then they have power to enforce this discipline and reduce the mess which increases the conflict between people and vehicles on the street.
The boda riders most of whom can’t identify simple road signs, accuse taxi and bus drivers of harassing them on the road. Taxi drivers also accuse boda riders for being chaotic and incompetent road users. The only two riders who have ever had any formal driving lessons, are both former taxi drivers.
We urgently need to address the boda boda industry to dry the tears of market vendors and stop the avoidable misery and pain in trauma wards in hospitals.
