Two road accidents involving buses plying the Kampala-Kigali route claimed at least five lives and resulted in so many injuries this week. The drivers of the buses, one belonging to Uganda’s Kampala Coach Service, and the other to Trinity Bus Company of Rwanda, were allegedly speeding when the accidents occurred, with the former failing to negotiate a sharp corner while the latter rammed into a heavily loaded truck. Both drivers, who were among the deceased, were also believed to be exhausted when tragedy struck. Kigali-Kampala is a very busy and important route with thousands of people constantly moving back and forth between the two sister capitals for various reasons, including business, education, and routine visits. A few years ago, the governments of Rwanda and Uganda worked closely to check road accidents involving cross-border buses serving the two countries following a spate of fatal accidents. These efforts seemed to have bore fruit with the number of accidents on the road significantly reducing. It is, therefore, important that law-enforcement organs from the two countries once again move to ensure that the existing measures to curb traffic carnage on the Kampala-Kigali road are respected by all the operators. Such measures as enforcing speed limits, installing speed governors, maintaining work shifts for drivers to prevent tiredness and fatigue, deploying traffic cops on major highways, regular close monitoring, among others, should be upheld all times – both daytime and nighttime. Everything must be done to save life.
