When to Be Extra Careful

Some moments on Kenyan roads carry far more risk than others. Nobody can drive at full alert all the time, so the skill is knowing when to turn your attention up.

Manoeuvres that need extra care

• Turning right off a fast road. It is the turn that crosses oncoming traffic, and while you wait for a gap, traffic behind you is closing at speed. The Turning Rule and Exit Rule covers the positioning.
• Uncontrolled junctions, where you give way to traffic from your right and must rely on others doing the same.
• Overtaking. Improper overtaking is on the official list of leading crash causes; Overtaking on the Right explains why it needs more distance than it looks.
• Dense, fast queues, where one late reaction spreads back, as The Brake-Light Ripple showed.

Days and hours

• The weekend. Saturday is the deadliest day on Kenyan roads, followed by Sunday.
• The evening. The hours around 7 to 10 pm are the most dangerous of the day. Several of this module's hazards arrive together then:
  • the light fails;
  • people walk home along unlit road edges;
  • drivers are tired after a long day;
  • some have been drinking.
• Night Driving on Unlit Roads and Fatigue cover each of those; here the point is that they overlap.
• Near the end of a journey, when you relax because you are almost there.

Speed and severity. Crashes are most numerous where traffic is dense, in towns and at junctions. They are most deadly where speeds are high, on the highways between them. Town driving asks for attention; highway driving asks for margin.