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Long night of agony for motorists, passengers in gridlocked Nakuru highway

By Mary Wangari December 7th, 2019 2 min read

It was a long night in the cold for motorists and passengers using the Naivasha-Nakuru highway on Friday night following a huge traffic snarl up starting from the Gilgil Weighbridge.

The gridlock is reported to have lasted more than 15 hours and spilled over into Saturday leaving exasperated passengers and motorists venting their frustrations on social media with no respite in sight.

“Not very good. We’ve been stuck in a 40km jam between Naivasha and Gilgil. Left Nairobi last night at 9pm and just arriving in Nakuru now 10.30am,” Charles Otieno wrote on Twitter.

The traffic crisis, which had stretched up to 40km between Naivasha and Gilgil, was reportedly caused by coinciding graduation ceremonies in various universities as well as a passout parade at the National Youth Service (NYS) college in Gilgil on Friday.

Laikipia University, Masinde Muliro University and Cooperative University all held their graduation events on Friday and this is believed to have a played a big role in the snarl up due to high number of vehicles involved.

Infuriated motorists and passengers castigated the said institutions and the Nakuru county traffic boss for the traffic nightmare blaming it on poor planning, with area and national leaders not escaping their wrath either.

Some argued that the hundreds of billions of shillings spent on Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) should instead have been used to create a lasting solution to the Nairobi-Nakuru highway traffic problem which affects the economy.

“The money spent on SGR would have been wisely spent on Nairobi Nakuru highway. It would have been easier to explain how such a project has created numerous employments. Some businesses are losing money because of the traffic jam pale Gilgil,” opined Spartan

“People have spent a night here at Gilgil Weigh bridge along Naivasha to Nakuru highway. Leadership poverty of vision at heart the matter. If SGR to Nowhere investment could have done a dual carriage Nairobi to Nakuru,” wrote Mugo.

However, a section of Kenyans blamed their fellow citizens for lacking basic road discipline and courtesy arguing they only had themselves to blame for the traffic nightmare and lacked moral ground to blame the authorities.

“Kenyans behave like animals on the road, even Wildebeests have some order in the jungle. Huge traffic jam hits Nairobi-Nakuru highway,”said Kamau Njoroge.

“Kenyans ought to own up their irresponsibility on the road. Police can’t be there to make one use common sense and courtesy on the road,” argued Bokoo Omwansa.

As of Saturday noon, motorists and passengers were still complaining that the situation had not improved much.

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