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{
    "id": 767979,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/767979/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 175,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Waweru",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1378,
        "legal_name": "Dennis Kariuki Waweru",
        "slug": "dennis-kariuki-waweru"
    },
    "content": "Thank you very much, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity. I rise to support this Motion by Hon. Melly and for good reason. Before I support this Motion, if I am exhibiting any excitement, I would like to confess that it is a hangover coming from the inauguration yesterday. I am truly excited that we are getting back to order as a country. I would also want to mention that if my eyes are not failing me, the other side of the House is quite filling up. I see my friend Mheshimiwa Maanzo. And I do agree that we are coming to an end of this resistance and getting to a situation where we start building the country together. For that, I would like to say that I am excited. This Motion is indeed timely. We got to be a House of vision. We have got to look ahead, beyond the years that we live in. as it is right now, any person who is reasonable knows that we do need those emergency lanes on our roads, for the roads that already exist and for the roads that we shall be building. Even for existing roads, we have seen situations where motorists have to create way for either fire engines or ambulances even if we do not know which emergencies they are attending to at that moment. With existing roads, as small as they look, we see that when there is an attempt by drivers to give way, finally the ambulance or the emergency vehicle is able to make way. So with those amendments, I do believe even existing roads can be redesigned to accommodate an emergency lane. I also support the amendments that have been carried, noting that as we grow as a country, rural roads will at their own time require those emergency lanes. I have had the unfortunate incident of having to carry a patient all the way from Athi River in an ambulance, attempting to get to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). The patient I am talking about happened to be a dear brother. The situation on that road did not allow us to get to the hospital in good time. And I can sadly say that this patient unfortunately did pass on. With the provision of an emergency lane, I do believe that the situation would have been different if we had saved a few minutes on the road. Finally, I would like to note that in constructing roads, we are actually dealing with the hardware. As a House, we will also need to go further and start interrogating how we shall deal with the software. By software, I am talking about our courtesy on the roads, our behaviour on the roads, how pedestrians view the motorists and how the motorists view pedestrians. I think we shall be going into a situation where we will be required to do a lot of behaviour change communication on how to use those roads. Allow me to use this statement: I believe that most of our road users are actually traffic-illiterate. We will require going further and making our road users more literate on road use. I believe that those words ring true: That change happens when the pain of changing overcomes the pain of staying as we are. As it is right now, we go through so much pain with emergency responses on our roads. I believe that even as we change the hardware of our roads, we should also endeavour to change the software of our road users. With that, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I support. Thank you very much."
}