TANZANIA IN August this year, Vice-President Dr Philip Mpango launched Tanzania’s new three-year Road Safety Plan including the iRAP Methodology and integration of improved road design and inspection systems with iRAP Certification to improve the safety of the country’s roads.
The Plan, which aims to reduce road crash fatalities and serious injuries, was launched in Dodoma during the inauguration of National Road Safety Week and the commemoration of 50 years of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC).
The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) is a registered charity dedicated to saving lives by eliminating high risk roads throughout the world. Dr Mpango noted that poor road infrastructure contributes to 16 per cent to road crashes and warned that without effective measures, serious road crashes could become the leading cause of death by 2030.
According to police statistics, there were 1,733 road crashes in 2023, up from 1,720 in 2022. Deaths from these crashes totalled 1,647 in 2023, marking a 6.6 per cent increase from the 1,545 deaths reported in 2022.
Additionally, injuries rose to 2,716 in 2023 from 2,278 in 2022. While stakeholders support the road safety plan launched in August by Dr Mpango, concern is being raised over failure by relevant authorities, including Land Transport Regulatory Authority (Latra) and the Police Force to come up with an explicit strategy to bring sanity to bodaboda transport in the country.
Motorcycle transport (famously known as Bodaboda) is a very common mode of transport, not only in Tanzania but also in East Africa and Africa as a whole.
To the great extent, the mode of transport has been very much useful in ferrying people from one place to another within cities and its peripherals.
Very unfortunately most of the drivers engaging in this business have no safety awareness and some of them ride without driving license. The means of transport that serves people of low and moderate incomes has been the most accident causing agent.
For example, the statistics show that more than 16,000 bodaboda related accidents occurs annually in Dar es Salaam city, more than 50 per cent of which result in fatality and permanent disability.
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But, when launching the road safety initiative in August, Vice President highlighted the troubling 13.3 per cent rise in motorcyclist fatalities nationwide – 376 deaths during January to December 2023, up from 332 in the same period in 2022.
Though the subsector has been regarded to provide informal employment for youths, unfortunately, the enforcement of the law has remained dormant and not active as it should be.
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We have witnessed bodaboda riders neglecting or violating traffic rules and regulations, putting at risk the lives of their passengers, other motorists and pedestrians.
In most cities, pedestrians have been bearing the brunt of bodaboda riders’ rudeness, making lives even more difficult. Today, pedestrians fear bodaboda riders more than cars while on roads. It’s now time to bring sanity to this mode of transport.
