Death toll in road accidents rises to nine along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway

By DANIEL NZIA and ONESMUS NZIOKA

Machakos County: The death toll of road accidents along the Mombasa-Nairobi highway in the last two days has risen to nine.

This follows the death of a couple who were involved in an accident near the road leading to Daystar University on Friday afternoon.

The accident that caused a major traffic jam in the area came hours after three people had perished near the SBI road construction site offices at Kyumbi near Machakos town and four others at Manyani area in Taita Taveta County.

Athi River OCPD Beatrice Kiraguri said the couple died in the fatal accident after their car crashed head on with a trailer.

The OCPD said it took the police and the Mavoko Municipal fire brigade squad more than two hours to remove the bodies of the couple from the mangled vehicle.

The bodies, she said, have been taken to the nearby Shalom hospital mortuary as investigations into the accident begin.

Athi River Traffic Base Commander Charles Opondo identified the couple as Charles Mwinzi Mutisya and Theresia Mwinzi.

The Makueni County Executive for Transport Ms Molly Kamene confirmed that the late Mutisya was the county interim roads engineer. Relatives said his wife was a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

It was said the late Eng Mutisya was rushing his wife to work when the accident occured. The couple has a son.

Reckless driving

Ms Kamene told The Standard that Mutisya had sent her a text message at about 10am excusing himself from a planned consultative county integrated development forum at Kambu in Kibwezi East constituency.

Machakos OCPD Hillary Birgen blamed the many road accidents on what he termed reckless driving. “Our drivers are so careless on the road that you wonder whether they care about their own lives. Their overtaking is crazy,” he told The Standard in his office.

Birgen cautioned drivers to strictly adhere to the traffic rules and regulations while on the road to avoid deaths. Police have also blamed road accidents on drunk driving and boda boda accidents.