UGANDAN POLICE SHOULD BE MORE RESPONSIVE TO ROAD ACCIDENTS

On Thursday, 10th September, 2015 at around 2:30 pm in Mukono near Centenary Bank Building a taxi from the nearby park hit a lorry heading to Kampala. It was such a tragic accident that the taxi had to be cut to remove the driver from the wreckage. What is so disappointing is that here was an accident in which the fuel tank of the lorry was damaged and fuel was flowing all-over the place on the Jinja-Kampala highway but Police did not come with or even call its fire brigade to be on standby in case of any fire outbreak. Worse still the taxi driver was still trapped in the wreckage but Police did not in any way use its expertise to remove him from the wreckage to save his life. But rather men around were struggling to pull the metal with their bare hands and piece of wood hitting right, left and centre. For close to one hour the men were still fighting to save a life. All police was doing was to take some recordings and guide traffic. I told one of my colleagues that the driver is likely not to survive basing on how long, without any ambulance nearby or even experts to remove him from the wreckage. No wonder just a few hours the following day, news was circulating that God for Bid the driver had died while being rushed to Kawolo hospital on a Police Pickup. The way we see police respond swiftly to calm riots should be the same way it responds to road accidents. My humble appeal goes to the IGP, that traffic police should be equipped with cutting devices to ease the saving of lives of people trapped in wreckages. Rather this habit of wanaichi rushing to the scene equipped with pangas and sticks delays the process of saving lives. And finally the police should not only come around to record statements but help in saving life. I commend that Police Officer in Eastern Uganda recently who kicked the wind screen of a mini bus that had overturned to ease the process of people getting out of the wreckage.