By Paul Karuga Njuguna (Executive Director, Road Safety Awareness Initiative @RSAIKenya)
To Kenya’s policy makers: the deaths on our roads in 2025 were not inevitable. They were the predictable outcome of delayed decisions, weak enforcement, and policies that exist on paper but not in practice. The surge in fatalities particularly during the festive season and at night should alarm every institution charged with protecting Kenyan lives.
This is not a knowledge gap. It is an action gap.
Data Was Collected. Action Must Follow
Throughout 2025, the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) and the National Police Service carried out road safety compliance checks across major highways and counties during the opening and closing of schools and also during the festive season periods. These exercises must not end as isolated enforcement events. The data gathered should now be analyzed, published, and translated into targeted policy interventions. Without transparency and feedback, enforcement loses both public trust and effectiveness.
Further, in September 2025, NTSA convened a multi-agency national road safety conference in Mombasa, bringing together transport officials, police, health authorities, and other multi agencies in governments. The focus was implementation of Kenya’s National Road Safety Action Plan 2024–2028, with strong emphasis on:
- Multi agency collaboration
- Data driven interventions
- Sustainable funding models
- Technology such as smart driving licenses
- Enhanced enforcement and safer infrastructure
As stakeholders, we welcomed this convening and the apparent consensus on concrete steps toward a safer road environment.
However, no publicly available outcome report, implementation roadmap, or clear KPIs have since been shared. This is deeply concerning. Stakeholder engagement without accountability risks becoming ceremonial. A national plan without published milestones, timelines, and measurable indicators cannot deliver results and lives continue to be lost while the public remains in the dark.
Implement What Is Already Agreed
The Road Safety Action Plan 2024–2028 is not a draft document. It is a comprehensive, well aligned policy that incorporates global best practices across safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, safer road users, and post-crash care. Selective or delayed implementation defeats its purpose. The plan must be rolled out in full and with immediate effect.
Equally urgent is the operationalization of the Kenya Transport Accident Investigation Bureau, approved by Cabinet over two years ago. Without an independent crash investigation body, Kenya continues to rely on assumptions rather than evidence. Understanding crashes root causes from ie vehicle defects, road design failures, impairment, fatigue, or enforcement gaps is essential for effective evidenced based interventions.
Parliament Must Clear the Safety Legislation Backlog
We call upon Hon. GK Kariuki Ndia, MP for Ndia Constituency and Chair of the National Assembly Departmental Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, to urgently champion stalled but life saving regulations, including:
- School Transport Rules (2024/2025)
- Commercial Service Vehicle Regulations (2024)
- Reintroduction and regulation of alcoblow (breathalyzer) testing, with public participation completed in 2022
Children, commuters, and pedestrians should not pay the price for legislative paralysis.
Impairment, Vehicles, and Roads Must Be Taken Seriously
Alcohol remains a major contributor to fatal crashes, but it is not the only one.H E the President and NACADA has come out very strongly over the festive period on alcohol and illegal substances and there could be a spill over effect to drivers on our roads. Illegal drug use among drivers, particularly stimulants used to fight fatigue, must be addressed. Drug testing kits should be introduced on roads, in schools, and within commercial transport fleets. Companies already conducting internal testing should be supported and regulated not ignored.2NK sacco has already belt the cat with their internal mechanism in alcoblow testing of their matatu drivers
Vehicle safety enforcement must also be non negotiable:
- Motor Vehicle Inspection Regulations (2019) under KEBS KS 1515
- Full enforcement of KEBS KS 372
Unsafe vehicles and especially written offs should not be recycled back onto roads through corruption or lax oversight.They are written off by insurance companies for a reason and insurance companies should help by having such vehicles deregistered as per the law
Infrastructure failures continue to kill silently. Speed bumps that violate KEBS KS 774:2000 standards are themselves hazardous. Engineers at KeNHA, KURA, and KERRA who approve non compliant bumps and rumble strips designs must be held personally accountable.
To counter rampant theft of road furniture, Kenya should adopt painted speed limits directly on road surfaces, as done in parts of Europe and North America, and deploy high visibility reflective and photoluminescent road paints to improve night time safety.The paint has been proven to work in parts of Eswatini,Australia and China
Smarter Enforcement, Cleaner Justice
Effective enforcement must be mobile than the normal static which can be bypassed by using google maps.We look forward technology enabled, and corruption resistant enforcement. Traffic policing should prioritize mobile patrols, supported by drones with high-powered cameras to monitor speeding, dangerous overtaking, and congestion at known blackspots.
The Judiciary can further reduce corruption by introducing a centralized digital system for paying police bonds via Paybill eliminating cash handling and closing a major loophole in traffic case accountability.
Two Final Interventions That Cannot Be Ignored
- Speed management: Lower and enforce speed limits in urban areas, school zones, and pedestrian corridors. Speed determines whether a crash is survivable or not.
- Post-crash care: Strengthen emergency response, ambulance coverage, and trauma services. Many victims die not from impact, but from delayed medical care.
Conclusion: From Conferences to Consequences
Kenya does not need more workshops, launches, or conferences. It needs published outcomes, clear KPIs, funded interventions, and enforced accountability.
The Mombasa multi agency meeting raised expectations. Silence afterward raises concern.
2025 must be remembered as the year we ran out of excuses.
2026 must be the year the government proves that road deaths are preventable and that Kenyan lives matter more than bureaucratic delay. Kenya does not suffer from a lack of policies, laws, or knowledge. We suffer from delayed action,Lack of political goodwill and weak enforcement. Every year of hesitation is measured in graves