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round 15 years ago, I was involved in quite a nasty car jacking attempt. We escaped but shots were red. It was particularly nasty. The only reason we escaped was because I could drive better than they could drive. We decided nobody should have to go through what we had to go through, said Glen Edmunds. Sadly such stories are too common in Kenya where crime statistics continue to increase and according to the Economic Survey 2012 were estimated at 75,733 last year. But how many individuals convert such a painful experience into a positive one, let alone build a successful business venture on it? That however is exactly what Glen Edmunds did around 8 years ago when he opened the Glen Edmunds Performance Driving School (GEPDS). Since then GEPDS has become the leading driving performance school in East Africa attracting clients from Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia and southern Sudan. Our rst oering was an anti car jacking course and our rst client was the British High Commission, he remembers. After that the business started to snowball. GEPDS two strongest courses are defensive driving and counter car jacking, followed by a course on 4x4 and armoured vehicle, and so in addition to attracting business from the United Nations, embassies, non-governmental organisations, multinationals and the oil and gas industries, many individual drivers also enroll for accreditation purposes. Insecurity in Kenya increases every year and the country continues to be on the high crime alert. As it prepares for general election, the country is poised for the inevitable spike in crime rates that political uncertainty breeds. Mr Edmunds advice to Kenyan drivers: The best deterrent for a car jacker is when you put
| Nairobi Business Monthly December
the registration of your vehicle on the side of your car. Dont be shy. Make it big. The thinking behind this is that when faced with a choice between an unmarked car and one that has a licence registration emblazoned on its side, a potential carjacker will choose the inconspicuous vehicle. Mr Edmunds comes from a long line of motor enthusiasts; members of his family have won the Kenya safari rally four times, and he has won it twice so it is no surprise that he rst started racing at the age of 12. He is a professional racer
who has entered four motorcycle grand prix including ones in Italy and South Africa. His business however is not about driving fast; it is about knowing your vehicle well enough to know how it will respond at dierent speeds, and what it will allow you to do in an emergency. And he has attended extensive training courses in Jordan and the United States, to educate himself on the same. As a third generation Kenyan, he attributes his business success to his racing background and training as a motorcycle engineer which has taught him about the inner workings of vehicles. Driving is all about physics - how to get a vehicle to do what, he says. Once you understand how to manoeuvre a vehicle and why it does what it does, you can teach the driver to understand how a vehicle will behave at certain speeds. Drivers unfortunately learn to drive btw 25, 30 or even 60 km an hour. Unless they understand what a vehicle does at higher speeds, theyre not going to have the right reaction. As a result, the challenges that Kenyan drivers face will only increase with the construction of the new super highways, Mr Edmunds says. According to government statistics, 8 people die on Kenyan roads everyday, and 111 people have already been killed on the Thika super highway just weeks after its completion. The answer is not putting speed bumps on
our new highways, Mr Edmunds says. That is only a band aid on the problem. You need to educate drivers, and it starts with the basics: which lane should you use on a 4 lane highway? And forget the new drivers that are coming through. We have to start with the people who have their licenses already. That is where the problem is. After that we can look at learner drivers and they will just lter in. As part of its social responsibility, his company oers a program called the young adult driver training where any driver between 19 and 22 who has had a licence for a year can attend a free defensive driver training course. Mr Edmunds warns that the situation on Kenyas roads will continue to escalate with the growth of the burgeoning middle class. This emerging middle class that were getting, that the government and companies are investing millions in: the rst thing they do when they get a decent paycheck, they buy a car, and sooner or later whats going to happen Mr Edmunds says with a shrug.
Drivers unfortunately learn to drive btw 25, 30 or even 60 km an hour. Unless they understand what a vehicle does at higher speeds, theyre not going to have the right reaction.
He is adamant that the solution is not to punish the driver in the instance of a crash. I call it a crash because an accident is something you have no control over, he says. Instead, proper training is required, and not a three day course when lives and assets are being entrusted to this person, as compared to the three to six month mandatory training period in Europe. From Sh25,000 a course, learning how to drive properly at Glen Edmunds Performance Driving School is not cheap. And Mr Edmunds pull no punches in this regard. If you want to tick the
box on driver training, go to those other schools dont come to me. Only come to me if you want to make a real long lasting dierence, he says. However the recent passing of the Trac (Amendment) Act 2012 is at odds with his advice since it adopts a draconian approach to road carnage by, for instance, punishing drivers with higher nes and possible jail terms, and failing to address driver attitudes. The government can fine the drivers as much as they want but that is not going to solve the problem, Mr Edmunds says. It has to be solved at the training level, and you cannot use outdated methods to change the driving culture in this country. Twelve lessons from a driving school will not teach you what to do in an emergency, or how to avoid a problem. With a full time sta of 4 trainers, and a team of 4 more, Mr Edmunds is prepared to change the driving habits of Kenyan drivers one driver at a time. And we will, he adds with gusto, but the problem is the deaths are coming faster than our training.
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December