Top of the causes of road crashes on Ugandan roads, according to the traffic report, is reckless driving. Police often attribute road deaths and injuries to reckless drivers, passengers who do not caution drivers, motorcyclists especially Bodabodas who ride as if they own the road as well as reckless pedestrians.
However, little did the police know that someone could die of ‘reckless sitting’ in his own house. This sounds awkward but it is the reality for Uganda’s Capital Kampala’s Lord Mayor, Erias Lukwago, who by now would have perished in a road crash; but in his own sitting room.
Today evening, Lukwago received, witnessed, or registered one of the most shocking incidents in his life when a Subaru driver rammed through his home gate and was only stopped from reaching the Mayor’s plate by the concrete pole on the house shade.
Lukwago, who took to social media and described the Subaru vehicle that was perhaps going to send him to heaven with the piece of meat in the mouth as UAJ 740K and he attributed the scenario to speeding.
“A short while ago, an overhasty and reckless driver of this Subaru car Reg UAJ 704K rammed through the main entrance to my house, the gate forcefully flung open and badly damaged. The over speeding car then rammed into the pillar at the entrance to the sitting room,” Lukwago said.
The Mayor explained that the huge bang shook the whole house and the children who were watching soccer in the sitting room started wailing. A female who was in the co-driver’s seat sustained serious injuries and has been rushed to the hospital.
“Luckily enough, the family is safe but some members are gripped by nervous shock. I’m yet to understand the cause of this bizarre incident which has badly ravaged my home. We have called the police who are yet to arrive,” Lukwago said.
Uganda loses on average 3,500 people in road crashes of which many are killed in their rest houses, shops, and children walking on pavements. People are killed by ‘flying’ vehicles in their gardens or even in their bedrooms while asleep, especially in homes that are so close to the roads.