SAMUEL M. MWANGI.
I am prompted to write by an article appearing in the Business Beat pull out of The Standard Newspaper on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, entitled “The Diseconomies of alcoblow.”
There has been a lot of debate in the Kenyan media related to road traffic accidents. The World Health Organization estimates that 3,000 to 13,000 lives are lost on Kenyan roads every year through road accidents, most of which are caused by over-speeding and drunk driving.[1] Whenever a serious traffic accident occurs on our roads, the public is up in arms complaining about the laxity of the government and particularly the traffic police. One would have expected that we would have applauded the day that we wake up to discover that at last the government was doing some thing to curb the carnage, given the huge loss of lives in the years gone by. This is not so.
The government’s measures to reduce road carnage including the ban on night time transport of public service vehicles and the re-introduction of the breathalyzer, popularly known as the alcoblow have met considerable opposition. Iraki’s piece in The Standard adds to this growing unease to the breathalyzer in particular. While his arguments are unbelievably feeble, one cannot fail to note the government’s position in this debate: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Iraki’s views are too insensitive to the Kenyans whose lives get maimed through accidents caused by careless driving. I am one such Kenyan. The values of the lives of the Kenyans who die on Kenyan roads every year from such reckless accidents can never be quantified. It therefore defies logic that such a respected academic of Iraki’s stature would attempt to squeeze academic water from the rock that is drunk driving.
The writer worries about the “economic waste” for the family in raising bail or fine amount for the drunk driver. I do not like the cavalier attitude with which the writer treats the incidence of one drunk driver on Kenyan roads. He ought to know that one drunk driver on our roads is one too many. The inconvenience that the family of such a driver undergoes in redeeming one of their own from his folly pales in comparison to the innocent lives endangered by such a driver.
The writer justifies the deadly habit by saying that alcoblow will make Kenyans to take “alcohol in their homes where they do not have to worry about alcoblow. This will expose children to alcohol early in life. Through such an argument, the writer conveniently forgets that you do not have to carry alcohol home to introduce your children to it. Your drunken stupor does more to expose the children to alcohol, than they ever would want to know. Again, which is the lesser evil? Losing a parent in a careless road accident or getting exposed to alcohol early in life?
As for the people that Iraki says are attracted to Kenya “because of some disorder, (ranging from) hooting matatus to late night drinking”, I would suggest that Kenya’s economy would be better off without such tourists who cannot afford a taxi cab fare home.
The “eucalyptus theory” that Iraki forwards in an attempt to sanitize the evil of drunk driving is of little academic merit. The writer should be reminded that his freedom to enjoy “after a long week of hustling” need not turn out to be a death sentence to innocent road users.
The writer studies M.A. International Studies at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies (IDIS) at the University of Nairobi.
[1] World Health Organization. (n.d). Road Safety in Kenya. Available at http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/publications/road_traffic/en/index.html, Retrieved on February 7th 2014.
Born Fire 