Despite its name, “Salama”, which means safety in Kiswahili, the area has over the years become synonymous with devastating road crashes, leaving behind bereaved families, survivors with lifelong injuries and mangled vehicles. The death of 17 people in a road crash at Mlima Kiu in Salama has once again turned attention to one of the most notorious stretches of the Nairobi-Mombasa Highway, where residents and motorists say fatal crashes have become disturbingly frequent.Despite its name, “Salama”, which means safety in Kiswahili, the area has over the years become synonymous with devastating road crashes, leaving behind bereaved families, survivors with lifelong injuries and mangled vehicles.Citizen TV retraced the journey from Nairobi to Mlima Kiu to understand what makes the stretch particularly dangerous.For about 70 kilometres from Nairobi, motorists travel along a dual carriageway, with two lanes in each direction providing greater room for manoeuvre.That changes at Machakos Junction, where the dual carriageway ends and traffic transitions onto a single carriageway towards Salama.The highway becomes narrower, with vehicles travelling in opposite directions separated only by road markings, leaving motorists with considerably less room to respond when something goes wrong.Drivers who regularly use the route say the transition marks the beginning of one of the most challenging...
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