Life is Cheap in this Country

upepo

upepo

Elder Lister
1639119251735.png

A scene that captured the bus as it plunged into the river, killing 31 people. The victims had waited for 3 hours for the water to subside.

After the loss of 31 lives in the Mwingi bus tragedy, all will be forgotten as usual, as the last references to the incident are interred with the victims. A few months or seasons from now, a similar incident will repeat, and the process will re-enact. Like pre-school kids, we will all join the chorus, blaming the drivers for poor judgment or risky behavior. These blames are premised on the assumption that the river crossings are appropriately designed, built to high-performance standards, and well-maintained, just like our roads. No entity has taken any initiative to re-appraise these crossings in terms of design, performance, and safety. That these accidents happen yearly should be reason enough to institute a continuous assessment of the performance of the structures to identify short-comings and make improvements where possible, with the objective of reducing the number of casualties recorded yearly.This falls under pro-activity, a rare attribute within our governance structures.
 
A lady on news yesterday reminded the nation that a similar accident in 2018 claimed the lives of 10 children and the government promised a bridge. 3 years later, another disaster.

 
Mwalimu-G said:
We saw about 20 videos of daredevil drivers and their passengers tempting fate. What do you propose we do about this kind of fools? World class infrastructure is of no use if common sense does not prevail.
Click to expand...
There are dozens of improvements that can be done on such structures with very little resources. When drivers keep flying off a section of a road, we don't live with it but redesign the sections and maybe include guard rails. In the 20 videos you watched, you should have noticed that most of them tilt over when they are three-quarters through with the crossing. That speaks something to the width of the crossings; they could have been wider and they are cheap to build. Two, the downstream side of the drift should not suddenly descend ten feet deep. There ought to be a raised platform that prevents the erosion of the riverbed next to the drift. This section will often be eaten away by flowing water but should be repaired. We should also have marking posts indicating the level of the water and the boundary of the road downstream. How about light foot bridges next to the crossing that pedestrians could use to get across when vehicle crossing is impossible. Are there even instructions to guide the drivers or are we supposed to assume the knowledge is inborn?
 
upepo said:
There are dozens of improvements that can be done on such structures with very little resources. When drivers keep flying off a section of a road, we don't live with it but redesign the sections and maybe include guard rails. In the 20 videos you watched, you should have noticed that most of them tilt over when they are three-quarters through with the crossing. That speaks something to the width of the crossings; they could have been wider and they are cheap to build. Two, the downstream side of the drift should not suddenly descend ten feet deep. There ought to be a raised platform that prevents the erosion of the riverbed next to the drift. This section will often be eaten away by flowing water but should be repaired. We should also have marking posts indicating the level of the water and boundary of the road downstream. How about light foot bridges next to the crossing that pedestrians could use to get across when vehicle crossing is impossible. Are there even instructions to guide the drivers or are we supposed to assume the knowledge is inborn?
Click to expand...
great explanation, insulting tax paying Kenyans is not the way to go. If they were able to enforce quality construction of bumps all over the country, this should be pretty straight forward to implement
 
Mimi nasimama na Gashui. Hakuna tiba ya ujinga, simple.

If Gavament were to construct billion-shilling bridges where flash floods occur just 5 days in a year that's all our taxes would do.

And it tells a lot when bonoboz here complain eti the drifts don't have guard rails. Are they supposed to have them?

Mimi hushindwa sana...
 
Field Marshal said:
Mimi nasimama na Gashui. Hakuna tiba ya ujinga, simple.

If Gavament were to construct billion-shilling bridges where flash floods occur just 5 days in a year that's all our taxes would do.

And it tells a lot when bonoboz here complain eti the drifts don't have guard rails. Are they supposed to have them?

Mimi hushindwa sana...
Click to expand...
There is a bridge that was built in 1940's across a river in Makueni county. Yes its narrow but to date its standing. Nitaleta picha when i use it soon. It may cost a lot but worth it. Theres a bridge just before you enter Mwingi town, very old too.
 
Giggz said:
There is a bridge that was built in 1940's across a river in Makueni county. Yes its narrow but to date its standing. Nitaleta picha when i use it soon. It may cost a lot but worth it. Theres a bridge just before you enter Mwingi town, very old too.
Click to expand...

What @Field Marshal is saying is that we can only afford a finite number of bridges. We can't afford to build all of them to high, flood proof standards because we cant afford that.

Rivers, Streams and Lagas will be flooding now and in future. The most sensible way of dealing with flooding is to train our people to be aware of the dangers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top