Africa-Press – Uganda. On Thursday evening, social media was awash with the news of the demise of businessman Apollo Nyegamahe, aka Aponye, who died in a car crash.
Aponye, who is said to have been travelling with four people, died on the spot after his vehicle hit a stationed lorry on the Kabale-Mbarara Highway on his way to Rukiga District at around 9:30pm.
An eyewitness said the lorry had got a mechanical problem and was parked in the road in the same direction where Aponye was coming from, but there were no signs like reflectors warning other road users.
Sadly, Aponye’s death only adds to the number of lives we have lost due to collisions with stationary cars parked on the roads.
On January 6, at least 19 people died and 21 others were injured after a bus rammed into a stationary trailer at Adebe Trading Centre on the Kampala-Gulu Highway. Police blamed the accident on wrong parking by the trailer driver with no warning signs.
Later that month, two people died and two others were critically injured after a speeding Fort Portal-bound ambulance rammed into a stationary car at night on the Fort Portal-Kasese Highway. Police said the vehicle had a mechanical fault which forced the driver to park it on the road.
Early last month, five people were confirmed dead and several others injured in a 4.30am road crash involving a passenger bus and a charcoal truck at Migyeera Village in Nakasongola District on the Kampala- Gulu Highway. The accident involved a bus belonging to California Bus Company and a stationary truck that had developed a mechanical problem at the time the grisly accident occurred.
And this is just a few examples of accidents that have claimed lives this year because of collision with stationary cars on the highways.
In a country that has one of the worst accident records around the world – WHO ranks Uganda among the countries with the highest traffic death rates, estimated at 29 car deaths per 100,000 people – it is high time we stopped lamenting and found long-lasting solutions.
It is our appeal that we all take responsibility to ensure the safety of others when our cars breakdown on the highway.
First, make sure you park as far away from the road as possible. Then warn other road users by putting reflectors or warning signs. There is a habit by our road users of using tree branches to warn oncoming traffic, but we must remember that they are not visible from far, or in the night.
Whenever possible, always leave your hazard lights on so that you are visible from a distance.
Finally, we need gazetted parking spaces for trailers and take them off the trading centres. Stationary cars on our highways are a death trap we need to avoid.
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