Abstract: Road safety in rural areas of Kisumu County had attracted a lot of public opinion and scholarly debate despite a potentially enabling road safety strategy mirrored in Kenya’s Integrated National Transport Policy (INTP). This was due to lack of specific attention in previous policy and scholarly research, yet there were perceived high levels of road fatality. Aware of the relevance of road traffic control as a conduit of policy implementation, this study sought to investigate and explain road safety concerns in that part of the county. The study particularly examined the influence of counteractive traffic control strategies on road safety. For this purpose, attention was specifically given to the effects of anti DMC vehicle operations, reactionary safety mechanisms against reckless driving, and penalty of traffic offences on road safety. The study adopted an exploratory and descriptive correlational research design based on the quantitative and qualitative approach. A sample of 365 respondents was selected from the study population of 1919 subjects using purposive and stratified random sampling techniques. The study findings indicate that road safety was generally low in rural Kisumu County. This was according to findings attributed to DMC vehicles, reckless driving and discrepant traffic offence penalty. Particularly, operations against DMC vehicles were inadequate, mechanisms fighting reckless driving were less effectively used and traffic offences were barely penalized in most of rural Kisumu. It was specifically found out that failure to combat DMC vehicles predicted 25.5%, reckless driving predicted 38.5% and poor traffic offence penalties predicted 33.7% of road safety threats. Generally, counteractive traffic controls predicted 44.9% of the road safety dilemma in such rural areas of the county. It was therefore recommended that Kenya’s National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), Kisumu County Government (KCG), and the private sector should phase out vehicles in dangerous mechanical conditions, ensure and support stringent road safety penalties and vigorously fight corruption in the road transport sector. Proactive traffic control strategies should also be promoted i.e. community sensitization on road safety, improved quality of driving schools, use of intelligent vehicle safety gargets, and consistent road maintenance.
Keywords: Counteractive traffic control, dangerous mechanical condition, reckless driving, traffic offence penalty, road safety.
Title: COUNTERACTIVE TRAFFIC CONTROL STRATEGIES AND ROAD SAFETY IN RURAL KISUMU, SOUTH WESTERN KENYA
Author: Silas Oloo Mc’opiyo
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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