Negligence will finish Africans. I am deeply saddened that a bus can be driven for almost a month for long distance with bad brakes.
I am wondering why NTSA can’t put up the standard guard rails that is like a wall. I know it’s said ajali haiepukiki but we can try. I don’t even want to imagine what kind of injuries the survivors have with that kind of impact. Will they be on wheel chairs or bed ridden. In 1998 a tawakal bus killed 50 something people at the same spot. KENHA and the proprietors of Modern Coast failed those 34 going on 37 bcz 3 are still missing who are no more and the 10 in critical condition.
At times its very depressing to be a Kenyan. A mum is dead after attending a funeral, by God’s grace her kids went before her. A young couple who had gone for dowry negotiations. A budding doctor going to take up her residency. The driver Mr. Simba a dad of two. We have really cheapened life in this country.
May God comfort the bereaved, heal the survivors and help our collective psyche snap out of these complacency and inertia we are in. Disregard for doing things right. Would Grey hound be on the road for weeks with bad brakes. My people this needs to end. You can pray to Allah five times a day with out missing but you can’t be bothered to fix brakes carrying human lives? Which Janna are you going to. Stop waking up to pray at 5am when you are willing to sacrifice human lives over profits.
Y’all say that I’m racist? Nah. Africans we have a problem. I can’t understand why. I can’t. For the life of me, a bus with bad brakes, driver complains for weeks, he’s worried. He tells his wife he’s worried that the brakes will fail but he still gets on the bus and drives it in spite of not having been paid since February in the name of Corona.
Sigh. What’s wrong with us black folk. We just can’t do things the right way. We are deeply religious but have no conscience. A little bit of money will change hands and modern coast will quietly get back in business. No real consequences. What is NTSA investigating exactly? The culpability of the management of Modern Coast? The brakes can’t be investigated but do something that is an actual deterrent that will make any other bus company play Russian roulette with people’s lives. I am just so sick of the same negligence killing innocent people over and over and we just feel sad for a day or three and then nothing changes. 1998 when Tawakal killed 56 people is more than 20 years ago. Why is this still happening? In 20 years nothing has changed. It’s just terrible.
Governor Meru thanks for paying hospital bills and funerals but how about you use your influence to erect concrete guard rails to break the fall of vehicles? It’s not too much to ask instead of all these photo ops just get KENHA to freaking do their job. I mean it is frustrating how much we have normalised negligence and how we never get to a turning point in how we do things. Politicking and being religious we love but just doing things right or doing the right thing is where we draw the line because it’s just Kenyan to take short cuts and not take responsibility for even the most rudimentary things like not forcing a driver to drive a bus with bad brakes long distance. I could pontificate all night about this bcz I’m furious that those poor innocent people put their lives in the hands of the wrong people. How do you live with yourself knowing that if you had just fixed the damn brakes things would have been different and those people would still be alive.
It’s very painful and why lie it’s moments like this I just hate being a Kenyan because we have just refused to take responsibility and do what is right. KENHA officials must steal and Modern Coast has to make money before they can think of fixing their buses’ brakes. That’s how value less the life of a Kenyan is in this country. Can you do this in China or USA? You risk lives for weeks because you wont fix brakes then next week you are back to operating as usual? When prius was recalled over brake issues. Every last one of them was recalled. Can you imagine the cost implications to the manufacturer but they have laws and they have no choice not to risk lives not to turn a profit. They are not perfect but they try to keep some semblance of responsibility. They have a modecum of human decency. It’s not an animal farm like ours where a freaking 50 or 60 sitter bus can be traveling thousands of kilometers with out brakes and accident after accident for more than 20 years KENHA cannot think to put up concrete guard rails to break a 40 meter fall.
RIP and get well soon. Comfort for all who are in mourning.
Modern Coast have become terribly inept. Some years back they were the to go bus co. if you were traveling long distance to places like the coast–the time the ‘oxygen’ bus was a thing. Not anymore. I used their night bus some 3 years ago, and I saw their customer service is a joke. Even after raising concerns on email to their management, they never bothered to respond.
He shouldn’t drive. The little money he made was not worth the children he will leave behind.
I could be wrong but I don’t think rails can safely stop a bus freefalling a 40m drop. The bus is heavy and loaded with a huge force caused by the hill.If you erect rails hard and high enough, the force onto the bus would cause it to roll on the road, after disintegrating on the rails. Have you ever seen F1 sports cars when they strike barriers after over shooting corners. Same effect.
You are right brakes are a big part. Lights on the bridge, warning signs before, rumbling bumps would help.
From the first account given by the patient in the Citizen TV report, it’s evident the driver couldn’t shift gears downwards at the correct time, so he would have arrived at the bridge moving too fast to negotiate the curve, and the brakes didn’t help either. Recipe for disaster.
In fact, even with well functioning brakes, he would still have had to struggle to control the bus in the wrong (high) gear.
Hio modern coast nili iogopa when a relative was travelling from a boarder town to nairobi sijui basi ili depart at 8 or 830 pm but by 2 or 3 am alikuwa ameland nairobi…ku ask niaje…ati oh bara bara siku hizi ni mzuri.
It didnt add up considering stop overs.
Hapo ndio nilikataa hio basi on the spot. Sijawahi travell na anything other than easy coach ama akamba kwa barabara.
Basi haijui ‘senior experienced driver’ bila brakes hata pikipiki ni lethal…hell hata baiskeli…Mr. Simba hii nayo ulikubali aje…isitosshe hulipwi mshahara…meaning your state of mind is distorted…this was disaster brewing…and unfortunately it came to pass.
I just shook my head…hata pole ilinishinda kusema.
Hata kama ni kazi wacha ikae…poor working environment on a 1000bob allowance…shetani ashindwe.
He had been doing it for weeks. Then complaining about it to his wife. He knew that he was gambling with his life and those of passengers. It was disturbing him psychologically. According to the survivor who lost his son and daughter in law, the bus was still in Meru when it started having problems and had to stop over at Igoji for a mechanic to look at it. It had other problems but the one that worried the driver was the brakes.
Do you remember that drift in Kitui where a bus submerged and we lost over 20 people.
Do you remember the tearly lady governor promising a proper bridge will be built?
Well, nothing has been done.
Ni hayo tu Kwa sasa
These are the kind of thing that makes me very reluctant to give people lifts. And the way shags people like cramming into a car like sheep. One time some stupid pastor crammed them into a small vehicle, even the boot was full. He hadn’t gone 2kms before he hit another car. We buried 5people in that place. The preacher didn’t have a dl, the car didn’t have insurance. The “preacher” was a buffoon who rose from a cook in a school. He was using the car as a matatu.
