By Zacharia Kanyonyozi
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
The Traffic Police, Field Force Unit-FFU, and the Military Police are jointly working together to stop “errant motorists driving with impunity.”
This joint task force has been at it since 2022, when traffic police spokesperson Faridah Nampiima informed the watching Ugandan public of the increased cases of impunity by motorists on the roads.
“We have started a joint operation involving the traffic police, Field Force Unit, and military police to crack down on those driving with impunity on roads, the operation will majorly focus on peak hours in the morning and evening. We want sanity to return to the roads,” Nampiima said in 2022.
In spite of this, or possibly because of this, according to the statistics released on 11 December 2023 by the Police Traffic and Road Safety Directorate, there were a total of 412 road crashes from December 3 to December 9, 2023, with 390 people affected.
Police has not released the full number of accidents on our roads so far in 2024, but if 2022 is anything to go by; it must be scary.
To be sure, the country registered 20, 394 cases of road accidents in 2022 compared to 17,443 registered the previous year. Out of every 100 crashes, 22 people died while 61 percent of all accidents were a result of reckless driving.
Having been a victim of avoidable several boda boda (commercial motorbike) and car accidents on our roads, I can confirm that our road users have zero respect for the law.
And why should they, our roads are after all a microcosm of what is happening in our politics.
With so much impunity and corruption courtesy of Dictator Museveni, our roads, like the rest of us, have been left to their own devices.
This has also led to road rage.
Research suggests “that young males are the most likely to perpetrate road rage. Environmental factors such as crowded roads can boost anger behind the wheel. Certain psychological factors, including displaced anger and high life stress, are also linked to road rage. In addition, studies have found that people who experience road rage are more likely to misuse alcohol and drugs.”
Although that research was conducted in America, it certainly applies to Uganda.
According to statistics, nearly 10% of the Ugandan population has an “alcohol use disorder.”
Then when it comes to drugs, the problem is not far behind as studies show that the “commonest substance was alcohol (23.3%) followed by kuber (10.8%), khat (10.5%), aviation fuel (10.1%), cannabis (9.2%) and cigarettes (5.9%). Respondents from the North were twice more likely to use all substances than those from Central Uganda.”
This is due to the despondency in the nation that Bobi Wine and other opposition leaders rightly blame on Dictator Museveni.
Is it any wonder that drug abuse is highest in Northern Uganda?
No, Dictator Museveni conducted a brutal war in Northern Uganda for over 20 years with over 50,000 children abducted thanks to Dictator Museveni’s Brilliant Genocide in that region.
To escape this hell, people turned to drugs.
Our roads are also crowded; an individual in Uganda reportedly loses at least 52 working days every year due to traffic congestion.
This causes anger since it affects our ability to make money in a predatory economy which has left us impoverished.
Bad roads and related accidents are an index of poor governance, that is why only a few weeks ago Bobi Wine together with Dr Kizza Besigye, Kampala Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and other opposition politicians under their umbrella, United Forces of Change, demonstrated the poor roads in and around Kampala by planting banana stems and yams in the potholes.
We must join them, for with order on our roads we provide a healthy alternative to the disorder of the Museveni Junta. And a distinction having been made, we strengthen the forces of change.
