Deadly Kenyan Crash, 40+ killed, no Obama wasn't one of them unfortunately.

[Chimps]

By NICHOLAS KULISH

NAIROBI, Kenya — The wrenched and twisted wreck was, in itself,
shocking enough: A passenger bus in Kenya crashed through a
barrier at a sharp curve on Thursday, flipping over, tearing off
the roof and killing 41 people, according to the Kenya Red Cross.

But perhaps the worst tragedy was how predictable the accident
was.

Last week, two car crashes occurred at the same curve where the
bus went off the road, leaving at least 10 people dead,
according to local news reports. Another deadly accident in
nearby Narok, at the junction for the popular safari destination
Maasai Mara, killed two more people later in the day on Thursday.

But in particular, a series of fatal bus crashes have shocked
the nation — including a school bus accident last month that
killed 20 people and a bus crash in February that killed at
least 35 people — underscoring the serious issue of traffic
safety here.

President Uhuru Kenyatta vowed Thursday to take action on road
safety in Kenya. “We must all begin taking responsibility and to
protect the lives of Kenyans on our roads,” he said.

The problem goes well beyond Kenya. According to the World
Health Organization, Africa is the deadliest region for road
traffic deaths, with 24.1 fatalities per 100,000 people. That is
more than twice the rate in Europe, where the figure is 10.3
deaths per 100,000, in spite of the fact that Europe has vastly
more cars, trucks and buses.

“The African region has 2 percent of the world’s registered
vehicles but a disproportionate 16 percent of the world’s road
traffic deaths,” said Tami Toroyan, a technical officer in the
department of violence and injury prevention at the World Health
Organization in Geneva.

Rural roads tend to be unlit, and vehicles are frequently
overcrowded. Accidents are common and often deadly, with drivers
speeding and executing dangerous passing maneuvers on narrow two-
lane stretches. Roads without sidewalks or shoulders are
plentiful, posing significant dangers to pedestrians and
cyclists.

Kenya has already taken steps as part of the Bloomberg
Philanthropies road-safety initiative, founding a National
Transport and Safety Authority this year to tackle the problem.
Significant hurdles remain and many deadly accidents appear to
go unreported.

In the World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Road
Safety this year, the official figure for road traffic deaths in
Kenya was around 3,000. But the organization estimated that the
actual figure was much higher, at nearly 8,500 deaths. One-third
of all fatalities are passengers, many of them killed “in unsafe
forms of public transportation,” the World Health Organization
said.

Thursday’s accident happened about a two-hour drive west of
Nairobi around 2 a.m. The bus was traveling from Nairobi to Homa
Bay on Lake Victoria when it drove off the road.

Traffic Commandant Samuel Kimaru told Standard Media in Kenya
that the driver had crashed straight into the guardrail. “From
our investigations, the driver did not even attempt to brake or
negotiate the corner,” Mr. Kimaru was quoted as saying. “He
seemed to have slept.” The driver was believed to be alive, and
the authorities were trying to locate him.

Photographs from the scene of the accident showed that the top
of the bus had been shorn off and was lying by the side of the
road. Passenger seats in the base of the bus were wrenched and
twisted around.

Francis Kimemia, secretary to the cabinet of Kenya, offered his
condolences on his Twitter account. “Drivers and passengers
alike should also have collective responsibility,” he said. “If
a passenger isn’t happy with something,” he added, “report, it’s
your life.”

Writing in a column in The Daily Nation newspaper this month,
the prominent journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo called for tighter
regulation of buses.

“The problem is that the bus lobbies in the region are too
powerful and politicians are either afraid of them, or are in
their pockets,” Mr. Onyango-Obbo wrote.

The headline of the article read: “If you didn’t know, Kenya’s
most deadly hangman lives in a bus.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/30/world/africa/deadly-bus-
accident-kenya.html?_r=0