ROAD SAFETY: A total of 71 people died in road accidents that happened last week across the country.
According to Traffic Police, 322 people were involved in accidents, in a total of 361 accidents which were registered last week
Out of the 361 accidents that happened, 64 were fatal, 181 serious, and 116 were minor.
ASP Faridah Nampiima, the Traffic and Road Safety Directorate spokesperson while addressing the Press on Monday, march 6th said, Kampala Metropolitan North, East, and Wamala regions had the most fatalities between February 26 and March 4 around the country last week.
Nampiima said the accidents were mostly caused by reckless driving, driving beyond the prescribed speed limit, drifting from one lane to another, driving under the influence of alcohol and driving vehicles while speaking on phone. She appealed to all road users to be cautious while using the roads.
She noted that traffic police arrested 8653 people and issued them with express penalty tickets for committing several offence while on the road. 1226 were arrested for reckless driving, 1478 for driving vehicles in dangerous mechanical condition, 326 for over speeding and another 379 for driving without seat belts.
Recently, The Bukoto Central Member of Parliament Eng. Hon. Richard Sebamala advised government of Uganda to heavily invest in four Key Priority areas to curb road accidents in the country. These include a National Driving school, Engineering component, Emergency response and Enforcement.
Eng. Sebamala advises gov’t to heavily invest in four key priority areas to curb road accidents.
According to the Annual crime report of 2022 the country registered 20394 cases of road crashes in 2022 compared to 17443 registered in 2021. Out of the 100 crashes 22 people died while 61 percent of all crashes were a result of reckless driving.
There was a 9% increase in the total number of persons that died as a result of road crashes from 4,159 in 2021 to 4,534 in 2022. The increase was in majority of the road user categories except for pedal cyclists and drivers that reduced by 9% and 1% respectively.
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