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The road to hell starts right here in Kampala, only we call it Masaka

Saturday July 23 2016

Ugandans have always lived in the shadow of violent death. For much of our five decades of Independence, it was political violence. We lived in continual fear of being killed by rebels or undisciplined government troops.

But that is now behind us. Even in the northwestern region of Karamoja where cattle raids often turned deadly, things have cooled somewhat in recent years, following the successful disarmament of residents of the area.

At one time, violent robbers had become a menace and they were almost claiming the city and the highways. They were however decisively dealt with by a joint security operation codenamed Operation Wembley. That was over 10 years ago.

In recent years, a major cause of sudden death has been the boda boda motorcycle taxis. The boda bodas still cause mayhem, but they are now being overtaken by superior killers – car drivers on Masaka Road. The new killers have even forced social media wags to rename Masaka Road “Massacre Road.”

These days, if a loved one is travelling using this road to the south of Kampala city, you start praying. It is more dangerous than going to war. Unfortunately, this road cannot be avoided for it is the gateway to the west of the country, as well as to Rwanda and to Tanzania.

It probably evacuates more traffic from Kampala than any other highway.

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The stats are simply frightening. Every other day fatalities are reported on Masaka Road. The light accidents kill “only” two or three people. A normal accident on this road kills five or more. And life goes on. Or does it?

There are all sorts of explanations why drivers kill people on Masaka road. Some say the design of the road is faulty. Others say the road has too many bends.

Some even claim that because there are many drivers going to and from Rwanda, where they drive on the right (or is wrong) side of the road, they tend to forget and revert to the wrong side of the road, causing collisions.

And so on and so forth. The results of a study commissioned by the government last year about the causes of accidents on Masaka Road are yet to be tabled.

For now, drivers of especially light passenger vehicles on Masaka Road continue killing off as many Ugandans as they can every week.

There is heavy traffic police deployment on the highway, but whenever the cops in white are out of sight, the drivers speed up again and some among them manage to kill a few people before they reach the next policeman.

In many of these cases, it transpires that at least one of the drivers involved in a crash was driving under the influence of alcohol.

Such drivers tend to overtake on sharp corners and where there is a climbing lane, they claim the inner lane when they are going downhill from the opposite direction. However, we still need to see a report to ascertain why people are dying on this road.

Let’s hope it comes out soon.

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