Abstract: Road safety in Kenya has since the mid-2010s caused more lingering questions following increasingly persistent road carnage in central and western regions. In response, this study set out to assess the consistency of driver support practices and their effect on road safety in the south western sub region, particularly Kisumu County. An exploratory and descriptive correlational research design was adopted for the study based on the quantitative and qualitative approach. A study population of 1919 people was coherently identified and grouped in categories that were adopted as sampling frames to select a study sample of 365 participants for field survey. The study found that the level of road safety in rural areas was low and relatively high in urban areas of Kisumu County. Road fatality was only less fairly reduced on rural roads and more relatively decreased on urban roads. This was congruently attributed to inconsistencies in maintenance of roads, training of motorcyclists including the infamous Bodas and Tuk-tuk, as well as enforcement gaps of vehicle safety gadgets that varied between rural and urban Kisumu. Road maintenance was irregular in most of rural Kisumu and relatively regular in urban Kisumu, respectively. Motorcyclist training was less consistent in most of both rural and urban areas of the county; only riders had formal road use training. Use of vehicle safety gadgets was very rare in most rural and fairly consistent in urban Kisumu. In conclusion, the level of road safety in Kisumu County had a very significant bearing on the consistency of all the three driver support practices investigated. The county had a lot more to do with such practices most especially training of Bodaboda and Tuk-tuk riders to boost road safety that has for long been below par. It was recommended that Kenya’s State Departments for Transport and Infrastructure, Kisumu County Government, the private sector and all other road users in the county should collectively help sustain driver support as required by Kenya’s road safety policy. All stakeholders can do that by going about their road use responsibilities in a rational and best practice fashion.
Keywords: Road maintenance, motorcyclist training, vehicle safety gadgets, transport operator, marginal road users, road fatality, seatbelt, maximum speed governor, anti-fatality airbag.
Title: DRIVER SUPPORT AND ROAD SAFETY IN KISUMU COUNTY, SOUTH WESTERN KENYA
Author: Silas Oloo Mc’Opiyo (PhD Candidate.), Prof. Sat Obiyan (PhD), Dr. Sofia Kazibwe (PhD)
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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