The high number of accidents and casualties that occur in Uganda as the year ends has led some people to conjure myths that the year always goes with some people’s lives as it ends.
During the 2021 Christmas holiday, police reported 58 deaths in road accidents and last year, 160 people died in road accidents during the same period. Such a high number of deaths is perhaps why some people are calling these spiritual deaths that every year sacrifices.
Before you start believing this myth, how come in other countries, especially Europe, they always register few or no accidents during the Christmas holidays? This brings me to my school of thought to attribute these accidents to lifestyle rather than spirituality.
Our lifestyle in Uganda as the year ends greatly puts our lives at risk. As the year ends, there is too much travelling upcountry, reckless drunk driving, and depression. As the year ends, many Ugandans travel upcountry to the villages to celebrate with their families.
This kind of travel increases traffic on the roads. This also forces public transporters to increase fares and the PSV drivers end up driving extra hours without resting so as to make more trips due to high demand. In the end, the vehicles wear and tear faster, and drivers get tired and become more susceptible to making human errors.
On December 20, 2022, I travelled to Soroti in a bus which I won’t mention its name but I heard the operators telling the driver that, ‘let’s move at high speed so that we can make a return journey so early because the price is so good.’ They had increased from the usual price of Shs 30,000 to Shs 45,000.
Because the Christmas holiday is long and people break off from routine work, many engage in drinking and partying, where they drink Monday to Sunday. Many have renamed December as ‘Drink December’. Those who don’t have cars, use boda bodas but the bodaboda riders also drink alcohol, even more excessively during the festive period but as a passenger, you may not know how drunk they are. Some riders even hide small alcohol bottles and sackets that they sip on during trips.
The last factor is depression. Depression is a mental disorder when someone experiences a feeling when everything feels too hard when you feel so low that things you previously enjoyed no longer hold the same joy. During December, many people get depressed due to many financial demands from families and also due to unfulfilled personal resolutions as the year ends.
When some fail to receive or meet the expectations of their family members in terms of festive season gifts, and extra and better food, especially in the villages, they get depressed and start wandering on the roads.
So according to my research and review of statistics of various Uganda police reports about accidents throughout the year, I have realised and analysed that many accidents are avoidable.
The author is an academician and writer
Source: The Observer
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