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We have a rather depressing tradition of counting those among us who lose their lives or get injured in road accidents every major public holiday – Easter, Heroes and Defence Forces Days and Christmas.Throughout the year, police record and release information on road crashes, fatalities and injuries, but during the three major holiday periods, the updates tend to be more regular and detailed.
The media across the board eagerly awaits the updates, and the “road accident death toll has risen” is a customary story on our pages during peak travelling periods.
There is nothing we can do on adding up and reporting the figures as we, the media and police have a professional obligation to present events as they happen.
However, it is a negative story on a national epidemic that we can do without if we promoted road safety by building better roads, enforced a better driving culture and strongly policed the highways to prevent accidents from happening, rather than busying ourselves tallying up our dead.
Because of this, we don’t see the apparent reduction in road accident fatalities from 134 in the 2012 festive season to 90 this term as at Friday as anything worth noting from a moral standpoint. Police are expected to give us the latest figures today. Whether the toll is still less than last season’s or not is neither here nor there as any death is unwanted and must be avoided.
The World Bank estimates that every six seconds someone is killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. About 1, 3 million road deaths occur each year, which makes this a global epidemic comparable to malaria or tuberculosis. The bank regrets that like malaria and TB, most victims of road accidents are young, poor and vulnerable.
Most of the crashes occur on congested and poor roads in Asia and Africa, with the former accounting for 60 percent, according to the Asia Development Bank. Only a small number occur in the more developed nations where roads are better but serve more vehicles.
“Nine in ten road deaths and injuries are in developing countries,” says Make Roads Safe, a UN-backed body that campaigns for global road safety. “Research in India and Bangladesh has shown that at least half of families affected by a road death or serious injury fall below the poverty line. The poorest communities are the worst affected, in rich countries and developing countries alike.”
Early last year, the Government said an average 28 deaths per every 10, 000 registered vehicles occur on our roads. A traffic collision happens every 15 minutes. An average of 45 people get injured while on average five people are killed daily.
Therefore at least 1,825 people die on our roads yearly with a staggering 31,025 being injured, some being rendered invalid. The global price is not only measured in human terms. The economic cost is estimated by the World Bank at up to $100 billion a year.
In Zimbabwe, we tend to concentrate on the bigger cost, which, of course, is the human one, with nothing by way of estimating the impact in dollars and cents.
The point that most road accidents happen in less developed nations is quite revealing. It suggests that there are certain measures that African governments, including ours can take to arrest this epidemic. We can do that by investing in a well-maintained and clearly sign-posted road network. Also drivers and vehicles need to be properly licensed.
A few years ago, the Government floated an idea of subjecting drivers to a fresh round of mandatory road tests and widening the requirement for defensive driving courses to other drivers other than public service drivers. The suggestions were later rescinded given that the Government is already struggling to test first-time drivers as well as retesting public service drivers.
But we feel that going forward; these are some strategies that can be considered to address the human factor to road accidents, which accounts for more than 90 percent of all crashes in Zimbabwe.
Indeed, retesting all licensed drivers, while simultaneously testing first-timers can pose logistical challenges, but we don’t see the same problem if the Government declares that every driver takes defensive driving training as part of the ordinary drivers’ licence course.
Stricter enforcement of speed limits through speed traps on more sections of our highways can help too with heavier fines for offenders. In Botswana, a traffic offence can attract a spot fine of up to 1,000 pula, more than $100. Impromptu vehicle checks have worked elsewhere.
On the foregoing three suggestions, we acknowledge that we have seen police details with the speed traps on our roads, and VID officials checking vehicles for brakes, hooters and so on but we argue these are not as thoroughgoing as they must be.
Most industrialised countries have cut road accidents by at least half over the past 30 years, even as the number of vehicles has increased, having implemented some of the above as well as enhanced road design and clamped down on drinking and driving. In these countries, poor driving is socially unacceptable.
This encourages more self-policing rather than having police always enforcing the law. Billions are needed to improve the physical condition of our roads and to invest in technology that monitors traffic for speed or erratic driving.
It is billions we in Zimbabwe honestly don’t have. However, we are seeing commendable commitment through Zim Asset to better our road infrastructure.
Online Reporter