Last December, during the Christmas holidays, I did what every Kenyan does – travel upcountry and join with family for the festive celebrations. I mean, who stays in the city during Christmas? Kidding … the shopping was done, bags packed and the car fueled and ready to go.

Kenya has a very bad road infrastructure. Most of our intercity roads are two way roads. You can imagine the crawling trucks on the sachangwan undulating plains competing with V8 Turbo Charged Cayenes by my “Shemejis” going to KSM via the home of the champions. I tend to believe that most of the accidents happen on that stretch of the highway as a result of the frustration by fast moving passenger cars and the snail paced transit cargo trucks. When is the SGR launching by the way?

I was telling you about my trip home.

About 90km west of Nakuru, after all the traffic jam getting in and out of Nakuru town, I felt it was time to step on gas (of course within NTSA limits) and get home. I wanted to get home quick and safe and allow the family time to rest. Think of being on the road, about 140Km to the destination, it is turning dark and the kids (Leah, 5 and Noel <1) are tired and hungry, what would a father do than rave the EJ20? For some reason, I did not notice that my car was overheating until a subie guy who was driving “slowly” behind me continuously flashed his headlights on me. At first, I got pissed off, but when he insisted, I took notice and pulled over. To my surprise, he pulled over too! Then his words, “boss, I could see steam from your hood and guessed you must be over heating”. I could recall seeing some steam over the hood of my car, but thought it was the smoke out of the slow moving truck ahead of me.

There I was 60 Km to Eldoret in the hills and dark of Burnt Forest. What does a dad do with a car that has come to a halt – rather, I had to halt it for the safety of the engine – and with a family on it? What was I to do to keep my family safe?

I will give you a summary of what happened and how I finally got to Eldoret at 2.30 am (almost 6 hours) later or in a separate post. But for now, back to the subject.

In the era of Internet of Things (IoT) and Virtual Reality (VR), why was it a difficult thing to get out of such a situation? If only my car could have all the connectedness, there would have been a sensor on my colling system that would have alerted me on the dashboard, sent an  MMS to my ICE contacts, my insurer and road Rescue Company (complete with Geo location details) and notified me of the danger and the solution. I would have loved to “Uber” an alternative car, leave my jeep parked by the roadside and get to safety. Because, with the right VR gear, I could watch over my car until it is towed. Infact, with the right connectedness and VR, I could easily see into the future of the car and predict that within the next 37Km, my car would be overheating and that I would have had it fixed in Nakuru.

Why are the Japanese so freaked out of integrating IoT and VR into their production? They are so hang up on automatic cars yet the world is headed autonomous cars?

ION – I think all dads need a crash course in Dental Surgery. What do you do as a dad when you get hom, your 6yr old daughter tells you that her best friend (6yr old) had her milk teeth removed by her dad? No man should jolt at such a challenge!