Road Safety Training For Bodaboda Operators By Nakuru’s KMTC And Partners

By Veron­i­ca Bosi­bori

Naku­ru Coun­ty Trans­port and Safe­ty Com­mit­tee, in part­ner­ship with the Kenya Med­ical Train­ing Col­lege (KMTC) Naku­ru and the Kenya Red Cross Soci­ety, today con­duct­ed a com­pre­hen­sive emer­gency response train­ing pro­gram for a select group of boda boda oper­a­tors from across Naku­ru Coun­ty in efforts to improve road safe­ty and reduce acci­dent fatal­i­ties

The train­ing, held at the Naku­ru MTC focused on equip­ping the rid­ers with essen­tial first aid prin­ci­ples and tech­niques.

Rid­ers received hands-on instruc­tion in man­ag­ing frac­tures, con­trol­ling bleed­ing, pro­vid­ing basic life sup­port and uti­liz­ing read­i­ly avail­able tools for imme­di­ate inter­ven­tion in acci­dent scenes.

“Bod­abo­da oper­a­tors are often the first respon­dents at acci­dent scenes, mak­ing their abil­i­ty to pro­vide imme­di­ate assis­tance cru­cial,” stat­ed Steve Muli, Chair of the Naku­ru City Board and mem­ber of the Naku­ru Trans­port and Safe­ty Com­mit­tee.

“This train­ing empow­ers them to save lives and mit­i­gate the sever­i­ty of injuries before pro­fes­sion­al med­ical help arrives.”

Muli empha­sized the com­mit­ment of the Naku­ru Coun­ty Gov­ern­ment, under the lead­er­ship of Gov­er­nor Susan Kihi­ka, to pri­or­i­tiz­ing road safe­ty. “We are ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing safer roads for all users,” he affirmed. “This train­ing is a vital step in achiev­ing that goal.”

Ngeno Kiplan­gat, Prin­ci­pal of KMTC Naku­ru, high­light­ed the program’s sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits for the bod­abo­da com­mu­ni­ty and road safe­ty at large. “By pro­vid­ing these skills, we are not only equip­ping these rid­ers to han­dle emer­gen­cies effec­tive­ly but also fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of proac­tive safe­ty,” he said. “KMTC’s mis­sion is to ensure that no lives are lost unnec­es­sar­i­ly, espe­cial­ly on our roads. We are proud to con­tribute to this vital ini­tia­tive.”

The train­ing pro­gram drew par­tic­i­pants from var­i­ous wards with­in Naku­ru Coun­ty. Stephen Mwan­da, speak­ing on behalf of the bod­abo­da rid­ers, expressed pro­found grat­i­tude for the oppor­tu­ni­ty. “This train­ing has been invalu­able,” Mwan­da said. “We now feel more con­fi­dent in our abil­i­ty to respond to acci­dents and assist those in need. We are eager to par­tic­i­pate in future train­ing ses­sions to fur­ther enhance our skills,” he added.

This ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant stride towards improv­ing road safe­ty in Naku­ru Coun­ty, demon­strat­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach between gov­ern­ment, edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, and com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions.

The Naku­ru-Nairo­bi high­way is a major artery of Kenya’s econ­o­my since goods from the port of Mom­basa are trans­port­ed to land­locked coun­tries such as Ugan­da, Rwan­da and South Sudan. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it has some of the most noto­ri­ous black spots like Kijabe, Kin­un­gi, Kaarai, Mbaruk, and the infa­mous Sal­gaa.

In the past, the most vis­i­ble peo­ple on the high­ways were the matatu dri­vers and con­duc­tors; how­ev­er, their pres­ence has been eclipsed by the boda boda rid­ers who have swarmed all the roads in the coun­try.

The boda boda busi­ness attracts both the edu­cat­ed and school dropouts, major­i­ty of whom aren’t used to being ordered and fol­low­ing rules, which has led to a high­er num­ber of them get­ting injured.

Some hos­pi­tals in the coun­try have opened spe­cial wards for the rid­ers due to fre­quent injuries.