By Peter Kahindi
Easter Sunday this year knocked me hard with deep reflection.
We woke up to the news of the unfortunate passing of the Kikuube LC 5 Chairperson-Elect, Mr. Peter Banura Araali.
He died aged just 51, ready to swear into his position of leadership of an entire district of Uganda for the second time running.
He was young, popular and so progressive that the Local Government Minister applauded him at his Requiem Mass for having elevated the status of his district based on official Key Performance Indicators.
Reports say Mr. Banura was killed by an over-speeding taxi as it travelled from Fort Portal to Hoima, which rammed into the Chairperson as he stood by the side of the road speaking with some residents in Butyamba Village.
My heart went colder than the morning itself as I read the stories about his passing. I did not know Mr. Banura personally, but I felt a deep pain within my chest, because I was still trying to recover from what had only recently been published by the Directorate of Traffic Police in their latest annual report.
As you read this piece, understand that at least fifteen (15) Ugandans will die today on account of road usage.
Pause for a minute and let that sink in. We all woke up this morning. By the time we finish dinner, fifteen (15) of us will be dead because we went out onto the roads in Uganda.
Now ask yourself how much we treasure life in this country, if at all.
To confirm that this is not a joke, I wrote these thoughts down on Tuesday and heard that eleven (11) people had died in the wee hours of that very morning when a Kasaba Coach was making its way from Rukungiri to Kampala and collided with a ‘box-body’ truck.
Four (4) to go for the day, right?
The statistics are out there in the open, but the bodies get buried in the ground and we all seem to forget immediately as we go out again to fetch another fifteen (15).
A Daily Monitor story on 30th March, 2026 reported that there has been a steady increase in the number of road accident fatalities over the past four (4) years.
In 2022, we registered 4,534 deaths; in 2023, 4,806; in 2024, we crossed the 5,000 mark and registered 5,144 and just last year, 5,383 souls were lost.
Road deaths have reached epidemic levels. We should declare one.
The fault certainly lies with the offending road users – which includes various pedestrians, cyclists and bodas, drivers of all kinds AND the authorities, depending on the situation.
In most serious countries, the authorities would face the brunt of these statistics, for allowing them to continue growing.
Errant cyclists, bodas and drivers get punished through enforcement, but where enforcement fails then the road is open for death – literally.
Besides enforcement, we must address the basic safety measures that our authorities need to put into place for all this road carnage to come to an end. Our roads are constructed for chaos.
Road signage is mostly theoretical, and even where that theory should be inculcated into road users the instruction is rarely taken seriously, leading to masses of ignorant people operating vehicles that are not road-worthy, all as part of the recipe for death.
All these deaths are unavoidable.
A friend pointed out to me recently that even primary school science tells you that cars are non-living things – the problem is the living things that operate them. The problem is You and I.
People confidently drive and ride in the wrong lane, at breakneck speed, using illegal dangerous lighting fixtures as their relatives and friends vandalise road signage designed to guide their movement.
That confidence is sometimes driven by alcohol, which is consumed so blatantly that there are boda boda riders who think it’s a flex to get about with a sachet of some illegal spirit sticking out of the corner of their mouths.
How can we not expect the fifteen (15) people dying per day not to increase soon?
Upcountry, heavy trucks and bus drivers insist on driving vehicles that move a constant diagonal angle because of broken centre bolts; in townships located along highways, motorists just come out of nowhere and join the highway without any care in the world.
Taxi drivers cram up to 13 people into a 5 seater salon car and go 140kp/h with half of the driver’s body outside since there are three passengers sharing the front with him.
The depth of stupidity even allows some of us to sit atop those taxis amidst the luggage and cargo which itself is illegal and unsafe. This is not a joke – see for yourself in the tweet below:
Don’t even talk about bus drivers hurtling down a dark, unlit ‘highway’ while catching up on TikTok videos on his second trip of the day with no rest in between!
How can we not expect the fifteen (15) people dying per day not to increase soon?
We need serious self-introspection. We urgently need more intervention and action from those charged with the safety of the road users.
We need some really tough questions asked with repercussions readily handed down where there are no answers.
Some people are waiting for President Museveni to fire the people in charge of road safety and traffic but they are too many in number.
We need to be a serious society – it starts with self-accountability.
Jambo (Hi)! I'd be happy to hear your thoughts so…say something here?