At least 20 000 students in Naivasha and Thika have been trained on road safety in the last three years.
Dr Kunur Abdella of World health Organisation (WHO) has said that they had targeted the schools owing to increased cases of fatal accidents in the areas.
“We chose students since they were most vulnerable to the accidents. We have seen the accident rates reduce drastically where we used to have at least 6 an average fatal accidents in 2011 but this year we have recorded none,” he added.
At least 20 schools located along the highways have benefited from this initiative. Each student is expected to train four more children on road safety.
“They are assisted with trained supervisors who have reflector jackets which help the young children cross the road,” he added.
Mwai Wilfred from the Ministry of Health cited that the counties should continue with the project to sustain it. The introduction of signage and proper road marks in the area should be included in the next county budget, he added.
“We also appeal to the National Transport Authority to take care of the initiative. Already they have reduced to 30 per cent and this should be sustained,” he added.
Dr Oren Ombiro from the Ministry of Health in Naivasha appealed to the police institutions to reduce the police turnover in the area.
He added that it has become tricky to train and retrain police officers.
“We want police continuity in the project. Police are the first ones to reach the scene but every time they are transferred, we are forced to start training a new batch. This poses a huge problem to the project,” he added.
He cited that the motorbike sector has also been a huge challenge but added that the rebranding of all motorbikes in the area will help them track users who hit pupils and run away.