A trailer whose brakes are suspected to have failed as it was approaching Isiolo town Monday morning hit five vehicles and ran over a boda boda rider, before it stopped about 12 kilometres away, along the Isiolo-Marsabit highway.
The truck was carrying cement to an unknown destination when the driver failed to control it, hitting the five vehicles including a lorry and killing a bodaboda rider on the spot in town centre along the highway.
The drivers of the five vehicles that were hit by the truck escaped unhurt as they were hit on the sides forcing them to veer off the road.
Business came to a standstill in the Isiolo town as curious onlookers thronged the scene of the accident as the others tried to identify the body, which was badly mutilated and lay on the busy road.
Isiolo Sub-County Police Commander Collins Sainna said the driver of the trailer lost control after its brakes failed.
He said police officers followed the trailer to Kiwanjani area in Ngaremara Ward where the driver managed to safely stop it.
Sainna said that police have started an investigation and the driver and the loader were taken to Isiolo police station to record a statement.
A Ministry of Works electrician Mr. John Njoroge who escaped the accident as the trailer pushed his saloon car into a drainage trench pleaded with the Kenya National Highway Authority (KENHA) and the County government to consider establishing a by-pass specially to keep away the heavy commercial vehicles from the heart of the town.
He said many accidents had taken the lives of many people in Isiolo town mostly caused by heavy trucks that experience brake failure as they move down the steep road from Meru-Nanyuki road.
A business woman Irene Muthoni appealed to Isiolo Governor Mr. Abdi Ibrahim Guyo to engage the road’s authority KenHa in order to ensure there was safety of the town residents, especially the hawkers and those who sell their wares along the dangerous highway in town.
A number of accidents involving heavy trucks had been happening in the town with a recent being one that took lives of six people after the lorry crashed into a Church in Town in February this year.
