Bodaboda recklessness is endangering everyone on roads

DAR ES SALAAM: WHETHER we like it or not, Tanzania’s roads are not private playgrounds for bodaboda riders. They are shared public spaces where motorcycles, cars, pedestrians, cyclists and passengers must coexist under the same traffic rules. Yet some riders behave as though speed, zigzagging, dangerous overtaking and sudden lane changes are signs of skill. They are not. They are reckless behaviours that can turn an ordinary journey into a tragedy within seconds.

The law is clear. A commercial motorcycle is permitted to carry one passenger, not two or three. The Land Transport Regulatory Authority (LATRA) regulates commercial motorcycle services and requires compliance with safety standards. Overloading passengers compromises balance, braking, manoeuvrability and the ability to respond to danger. A passenger who accepts such a ride is not buying convenience; he or she is accepting unnecessary risk.

The consequences are already measurable. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Tanzania recorded 322 motorcycle accidents in 2025, resulting in 287 deaths and 311 injuries. Although these figures declined from 2024, hundreds of deaths and injuries in a single year remain a sobering reminder that road safety cannot be treated casually. The report identifies speeding, wrong overtaking, careless driving and failure to respect other road users among the causes.

More disturbing is the assumption that motorists will always save reckless riders. A bodaboda weaving between vehicles effectively leaves his survival at the mercy of a motorist’s reflexes. Drivers are forced to brake, swerve or take evasive action to avoid hitting riders who ignore lane discipline. That is neither fair nor sustainable. Every road user has a responsibility to make predictable movements and obey traffic rules.

Or put it this way, there is also a wider public-health cost. Tanzania collected 648,592 units of blood in 2024/25, exceeding its national target of 590,000, but blood remains an essential and finite medical resource. The World Health Organisation (WHO) specifically identifies mothers suffering severe bleeding after childbirth, children with severe anaemia, accident victims and surgical patients among those who depend on safe blood.

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With this in mind, a doctor exercising ordinary professional judgment, cannot and should not leave a pregnant woman and her unborn baby to die because blood has been used treating a rider injured through reckless riding. Every patient deserves treatment. But society should not create preventable trauma that competes for resources needed elsewhere.

The message to riders is simple: Professionalism is not speed; it is responsibility. Obey the rules, carry only the permitted passenger, stop weaving through traffic and overtake safely