Deeply committed to making roads less dangerous, the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) has rolled out a nationwide road safety initiative targeting school children.
Dubbed “Vuka Salama Initiative” aims at reaching over 1,000 schools by the close of 2022/ 23 financial year.
The agency together with several other partners is initially targeting school located along busy highways.
Speaking in Murang’a County where he pioneered the project at Kimorori Primary School, NTSA Director-General George Njao, the agency will implement the road safety education drive in phases.
“We will teach children how to use the roads, behave once faced by a traffic threat and also how to respond to accident victims,” Njao said.
Njao said the programme seeks to make pupils alert to multiple dangers linked with road use and also teach them how to react when faced with danger and behave as victim of an accident.
US-based child welfare organization Para Los Ninos Kenya’s representative, Angela Kang’ethe said the initiative will turn some pupils. We want to empower learners to take charge of their road safety,” she said.
The initiative comes following a rise in deaths through accidents as children and teenagers constitutes 21 per cent or 476 of the 2,228 people who die in road crash, according to data from NTSA.
The increased number of children dying or being injured in road crashes is partly due to the growth of the middle class, which has resulted in a higher number of vehicles.
More children go to schools that are far away from their homes, forcing them to use vehicles, while many more cross busy roads as they walk to schools.