Death on the Line

June 24, 2006

In a country whose number of car accidents and loss of life is dreadfully larger than the number of cars on the streets (170,000 and increasing at 10pc a year), a new element is added in to the whole saga: the use of mobile phones while driving. The Traffic Department has yet to compile its data linking accidents to mobile use, but our staff writers, Derese Nigatu, Wudineh Zenebe, Habte Tadesse and Tagu Zergaw, attempted to shed some light on the extent of the problem.

If Taye Beyene, 36, could turn back the clocks two years, he would gladly give back his mobile phone. It was then that he had a car accident on the ring road, near Tor Hayloch that had kept him unconscious for a couple of days, at Black Lion Hospital. Today, that fateful accident has left him with only one leg and a crutch.

Taye was born in Arba Minch, a small town in Southern Ethiopia, 493Km from Addis Abeba. Hoping to lead a better life, he moved to the capital and became a driver at one of the international non-governmental organizations under a three-year contract, beginning 2003. He did not finish it.

The memory of the accident is still fresh to him. Taye left his home, in Kirkos District, Kebele 10, and drove to Jimma, 346Km to the west of Addis Abeba, where he was supposed to pick up NGO staff.

"I was driving fast on the ring road," he remembered.

Suddenly, his mobile phone rang; it was an overseas call he thought he could not ignore.

"I was answering the phone when my car suddenly smashed into a roundabout," he recalls.

Walking up from his coma two days later, Taye was faced with doctors asking him his consent to amputate his left leg, which they said was no longer alive.

"I had no choice but to let it go," he told Fortune.

Today, Taye is back with his parents in Arba Minch, unsure of what to do with his life. It seems, his dream of making it in metropolitan Addis is on hold for the moment. In a city where the rate of road fatalities is growing horrifically, Taye's story is hardly an isolated one. Since mobile phones made it into the life of Ethiopians in 1999, there are several such untold stories.

One such sad story, the victim of which insisted ob anonymity, involves a terrible accident on Benin Street.

It was a little over a year ago when this man drove a government owned Toyota pick-up from Addis Abeba Restaurant toward the Addis Abeba University. He saw a truck advancing towards him. If needed, he thought, he could slow down when passing it. But then his mobile, put in the cup-holder near the gearbox, suddenly rang from someone he was expecting a call from. For a split of a second, he turned his head down to get his mobile out of the cup-holder. When he glanced back to the road, he saw not the truck in the opposite lane, but a speeding taxi overtaking the truck directly in front of him.

It was too late: he swerved as best he could, but had no room to manoeuvre. The car ran on down the hill flipping on its side, leaving the victim with a series of injuries on his face and waist. He was immediately taken to Yekatit 12 Hospital.

"The trauma stayed with me for too long; I used to quiver when I see people speak on their mobile," he said, rubbing his face that has a huge scar on his right cheek.

It reminds him of the mistake he has done but determined not to repeat ever again. He now pulls over to the side if he needs to respond to a call on a mobile or ignores it all together.

Taye says making a call with a mobile phone or answering calls while driving often result in serious accidents; it causes interruption of the attention and affects the concentration of drivers.

In research conducted by the National Road Safety Coordination Office, a federal agency established three years ago, 20pc of drivers talking on a mobile phone were technically unaware of driving conditions around them. That number jumped to 29pc when the driver was talking on a particularly serious issue.

An expert from the traffic department agrees that using mobile phones diverts attention. Drivers are too late to respond to what can suddenly develop on the road, according to this expert.
His assumption is well substantiated by the research of the Coordination Office: such delays can increase from 0.6 seconds up to 0.9 seconds depending on the environmental conditions, the speed of the car at that time and the age of the driver. Such a delay in applying the brakes with a speed of 60Kms per hour means an increase of 15 metres in the cars stopping distance.

Another finding that is observed frequently in researches is that drivers slow down when they are on the mobile phone. However, this is not enough to prevent the dangers; it is also possible that drivers that use mobile phones would not react at all in a dangerous situation.

Ironically, those in charge of managing traffic on the country's roads have yet to establish a link between the increasing number of accidents and a new culture of mobile use while driving.

"We don't have any evidence that proves an accident happened due to mobile phones," said an official from the Traffic Department of the Addis Abeba Police Commission. "Yes, we may have eye witnesses who could attribute accidents to mobiles. We also know that there are some accidents related to it. But, we can't consider the use of mobile phones as one of the major causes up until now."

The traffic department for instance has no report so far that has registered accidents due to mobile use. Nevertheless, the statistics kept in their shelves tell a rather glaring story. The number of deaths registered since 1999 (the year mobile was introduced) due to car accidents has increased from 283 in 1998 to 320 in 2003, while the number of all accidents during the same period has escalated from 7,345 to 10,543.

Nevertheless, it could be difficult to conclude that this increase is all due to the emergence of mobile use while driving. However, it is a trend too evident for authorities to simply brush off. The cost on the road is getting to horrific to contemplate.

The same researches discovered that 300 accidents occur every year for every 10,000 cars; over 6,000 accidents occur annually. It cost the insurance industry half a billion Birr.

Of these accidents, 48pc occurs to pedestrians, 45pc to passengers, and seven per cent on drivers. Last year, 10,543 accidents were registered in Addis Abeba that claimed the lives of 320 people.

Although the use of mobiles while driving is becoming an increasingly alarming part of accidents; it is not limited to them. There are several other factors from the rampant driving under the influence of alcohol to poor skill; from poor vehicles technical condition to negligence in buckling seat belts.

Bahiru Tekele, an importer of used cars from Dubai, is one of these victims who survived thanks to a seatbelt.

"I usually buckle a seat belt whenever driving," said Bahiru. "That is what saved my life."
Regrettably, his friend, Alemeshet Jarra, 26, was seated next to him without fastening a seatbelt when the accident happened three years ago. Alemshet bumped on the windscreen and fell out of the vehicle as a result of the impact between the two cars.

Bahiru was driving back from Sodere, along with two of his friends, where one of them was at the back and drunk. He said that there was not much traffic on the highway between Debre Zeit, 47Km, and Dukem, 37Km, to the east of the capital. He was driving 100Km/hr, on April 6, 2003, at 7.30p.m., when he was trying to pass a trailer truck, which was heading the same direction as his, said Bahiru, a 30-year old college student at the time.

While trying to pass the truck, Bahiru could not estimate, accurately the distance of the car that was coming towards him, the headlights of the other car were not as bright as they were supposed to be.

"I thought I had time to pass the truck," he remembered. "I was at the middle of the trailer when I realized that the car is not as far as I thought, it was only few meters ahead of me."

He heard his friend yelling, "stop!"

It was too late. Both the driver of the car ahead of them and Bahiru tried to hold their brakes tight; they did not help.

"We stopped when we slammed into each other," he said.

Seat belts are designed to keep passengers, particularly on the front seat safe, when such accidents happen. They are so important that recent cars put the seat belt automatically on the passenger when the engine starts.

According to a research by the Coordination Office, 81pc of accidents occur due to faults by drivers, and speed plays a large part. Traffic police officers and drivers point out that most accidents do happen because of the ability of decision making, both of the drivers and pedestrians and also because of over speeding.

The same research by the Coordination Office discovered the probability of saving life is only 15pc if a person is hit by a car travelling at 60Km per hour. The percentage may go up to as far as 95pc if a car travelling at 30Kms per hour hits the same person.

Indeed, there are speed-controlling radars that were introduced in mid 2004. These radars are currently functioning in the eastern Shoa zones of the Oromia Regional State - on the Addis-Modjo-Awassa road. This is a corridor that is classified as a death trap to drivers, where Bahiru lost a friend.

According to Abebe Asrat, general manager of the Coordination Office, what a four-month experiment using speed control radar brought to the office is the realization that many of the drivers frequenting this corridor are not even aware of their speed.

"There should be the practice of using these radars exhaustively," he said.

Over 44 traffic police officers were trained in March 2006 by Canadian experts from the International Safety Road Academy to be deployed on the streets.

As much as a major portion of the problem is attributed to drivers and their unethical behaviour on the roads, they are not limited to motorists, according to the same research. Pedestrians have a big part in it, claiming four per cent of the blame.

That is what Gezahegn Ayele, a driver from the Ministry of Education, sees as a major reason behind the increasing accidents in Markato in the past five years.

"Pedestrians are no longer afraid of cars," Gezahegn observed. "When they cross the road, they just go into the road leaving the rescue job only to the driver."

He told Fortune that most accidents happen when a pedestrian becomes reluctant to continue crossing and stops in the middle of the road at the same time. The highest level of carnage is on the ring road; although no research has been conducted only dedicated to accidents happening on this 33Km incomplete ring road. Drivers drive at speed on this road because it is supposed to be free of pedestrians. But there are still pedestrians jumping into the highway over the fence instead of using the fly walks.

In Ethiopia, there are no rules that penalize jaywalkers on such roads and there will be more pedestrian overpasses constructed at convenient places. The situation will be soon adjusted, according to an official from the Coordination Office; legislation is planned by the federal government that provides instruments to traffic officers to issue tickets to pedestrians that violate rules such as not crossing on zebra lines.

It is also this legislation that will outlaw the use of mobiles when driving or force drivers to install hands-free system in their cars. Only then will what happened to Taye and Bahiru become less prevalent on the roads of Ethiopia.

Addis Fortune