Online Reporter
ONCE again a lot of Zimbabweans will be on the road this weekend, and many may well be spending time in bars and entertainment venues, so road safety comes to the fore.
The police, the Zimbabwe Traffic Safety Council, and even bus companies and kombi operators can and must try and enforce the law and rules. But there is only so much they can do.
In the end it is up to each individual driver, each pedestrian and each cyclist. These are the people in the front line and if they make a mistake they may die, and they may well kill others. So everyone has to accept their individual responsibility.
If everyone driving, and every pedestrian walking along the side of the road or trying to cross a road acted in accordance with the Highway Code, or even just made sure that they were safety conscious and showed common sense, we would not be having road accidents and the consequent funerals.
The police are doing their bit. We have reported on the upgraded efforts by Mbare district in Harare to put in tighter controls at the country’s largest bus terminus, Mbare Musika, with officers not just patrolling and keeping criminals at bay when they try to assault or con passengers, but also checking out buses and kombis as they leave, and having a hard look at the drivers.
Unroadworthy vehicles will not pass the gates, nor will those without the required licencing and permits. Perhaps even more importantly, the police officers will be checking that drivers are sober. We hope other police districts and stations with terminuses in their areas will take similar measures; it all helps.
Most road accidents are caused by driver error, the statistics show. And over a long holiday there are a lot more ordinary drivers on the road, people who do not drive for a living. That increases dangers.
The Government and police have made major efforts over the past few years to ensure that the professional drivers, those who drive every working day for most of the day, have been checked out and that those who employ them are prepared to ensure that they do behave, with severe sanctions on bus owners and the like if their drivers decide to break the law.
Mandatory and optional satellite tracking has also allowed the employers to make sure that their drivers are calmly doing the work properly. The satellite tracking feeds for public service vehicles, the buses mainly, can even be monitored in real time by the police. We have seen the results of these practical efforts, far fewer bus crashes.
Ordinary drivers are a different class. Many have a lot less experience than the professionals and are more likely to show their impatience when roads are congested or they are stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle. This is when we have chances taken in overtaking, or in taking other serious risks.
One problem is that many ordinary drivers are not nearly as good as they think they are, so when they take a risk they are more likely to come unstuck than say a kombi driver who is usually a good driver, just one who regards the Highway Code as an optional extra.
Over holiday weekends we also have even more people on the roads, who have been to a bar and enjoyed a few drinks with friends. It is highly likely that many of these will have alcohol levels above the legal limit, and so are more likely to make mistakes and more likely to find it harder to correct an error.
The police are now equipped with breathalysers and speed recording equipment, and we hope that they will be using them, especially over holiday weekends. We need to build up that environment among drivers, that drinking and driving are incompatible and just not done.
There are many drivers who like to boast how they exceed the speed limits, and even what a better driver they are after a few beers.
Technically, they are criminals boasting of committing crime, although most would be horrified at such a description since they do not steal or commit assaults and see themselves as honest people. They are, until they clutch the steering wheel.
Even the perfect driver needs to remember that they are sharing the road with people who are not. When involved in an accident they will always be the innocent party, but that is of zero benefit if they or family members have been killed by the driver in the wrong. So they need to be specially alert and always make sure they have a margin of safety.
