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The Accident-Prone Driver
Look at the official list of what caused Kenya's road crashes in 2024. The KNBS Economic Survey 2025 names:
- speeding;
- overloading;
- failing to keep lane discipline;
- improper overtaking;
- driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs;
- total disregard of traffic laws;
- aggressive driving.
Not one of those is bad luck, and not one is a mechanical failure. Every item is a choice, and behind each choice is an attitude.
Road-safety research has long found that crashes are not spread evenly across drivers: a relatively small group is involved in a large share of them. They are not unlucky. They share attitudes, and those attitudes are recognisable:
| The attitude | What it lookks like on the road |
|---|---|
| Makes excuses instead of learning from mistakes | "That matatu came from nowhere." (It came from the stage you drove past.) |
| Denies the dangers | Driving past a school at full speed because "they know to look" |
| Acts impulsively | A sudden lane change into a gap nobody else would take |
| Pride | Speeding up when someone tries to overtake |
| Needs to win | Refusing to let anyone in; overtaking on a solid line to get ahead |
| Careful elsewhere, vents in traffic | The calm person at work who becomes someone else behind the wheel |
| Late nights | Driving tired, often after drinking |
| Treats the road as a race | Speed as entertainment |
It helps to think of three stages of maturity as a driver. The impulsive driver thinks only of themselves. The rule-follower is fine until the rules are not enough, and then falls back on "insisting on their right". The mature driver respects the rules and handles the unexpected calmly: no horn when someone stalls at the lights, no race when someone overtakes.
Read the table honestly. Almost everyone recognises one or two lines, and that is the point. A crash-free record doesn't prove you are safe. Many of these habits run for years without a crash, until the day they meet the wrong hazard.
Key takeaways
- Kenya's leading crash causes (speeding, improper overtaking, drink-driving, aggressive driving) are choices, and behind each is an attitude: excuses, pride, impulsiveness, the need to win.
- Audit yourself against the list. A clean record doesn't prove safe habits; the goal is the mature driver who handles the unexpected calmly.
Quick check
A driver has never had a crash but regularly speeds up when someone tries to overtake them and refuses to let other drivers in. What does this suggest?