BUS DRIVER TRAINING IN UGANDA

The road safety situation in Uganda can be regarded as alarming. Available data (excluding Under reporting) from Police shows that over the last three years since 2018, approximately 10 people are killed and 26 people seriously injured in about 40 crashes every day on Ugandan roads. Uganda is one of the most exposed countries in the world regarding Road Traffic Crashes. The fatality rate of 29 deaths per 100,000 population (WHO, 2018) is extremely a disturbing figure for a low-income country like Uganda with only 1,500,000 vehicles registered. The average fatality rate per 100,000 population for Africa is 26.6 and that for Europe is 9.3. The socioeconomic cost of road trauma in Uganda represents an estimated 5% of Uganda’s GDP.

There is limited formalized training opportunities in new defensive driving skills and strategies, which has in turn led to poor compliance of the law by drivers who do not comply with the traffic rules thereby Contributing to higher traffic risks like road crashes that lead to deaths and injuries on the roads. There is absence of a National Traffic Institute in Uganda to provide such acute skills gap amongst the Bus drivers at a specialised level.

Currently, bus drivers who are at the frontline in public transport have limited knowledge of their role while on the road, they only think road safety is about seating at the steering and driving the bus to its destination. As a result, some of them do not take safety as a serious issue leading to the worsening of the poor safety situation.

There is an urgent need for a systematic training program that will provide Bus owners with the skills and knowledge necessary to become effective in addressing road safety strategies amongst their drivers to improve the overall road safety situation.