adminIn yesterday’s edition of Chronicle, we carried a story on the police barring commuter omnibuses from passing through the city centre in a bid to reduce congestion and accidents.
The police operation, code- named “100 percent decongest the city”, was launched on Friday and is aimed at eliminating pick-up points in the central business district.
The Officer Commanding Traffic in Bulawayo, Superintendent Henry Mhlanga, said the operation had been launched to bring sanity to the city’s roads.
“A majority of accidents in the city are caused by vehicles that pick and drop passengers at undesignated points,” said Supt Mhlanga.
We agree with Supt Mhlanga and urge him to deploy more officers to bring sanity on the roads. We detest a situation where some road users believe they are more important than others and that they can exhibit their bullying tactics as they wish.
The City of Kings and Queens, once regarded as a shining example of a clean city in this part of the continent, had turned into a jungle with commuter omnibuses and pirate taxi operators doing as they pleased on our roads.
They have for years been operating with impunity and disregarding other road users in the process drawing the ire of other motorists and pedestrians.
For some time it had become normal behaviour to see a commuter omnibus making a sudden U-turn in front of other motorists on some city roads especially near TM Hyper while others would randomly park their vehicles.
We therefore welcome the move by the police to go out and tame this traffic jungle.
Although we understand that commuter omnibus operators are in business and need the money, they should not get it using whatever means necessary at the expense of other people’s lives.
As for the police, we believe they had taken too long to deal with these hooligans on our roads and feel they have been massaging them all along. Now we want to see real action.
However, at the same time, we call upon the police to stick to their mandate of policing as there is a belief that traffic police officers solicit and accept bribes from commuter omnibus crews. The police officers should do their job professionally if they are to tame this menace.
We also appeal to the owners of the kombi crews to rein in their drivers and conductors so that there is peace on our roads. We believe it is also the failure of the owners and the targets they set for their workers that is causing all this chaos on our roads because the crews would be aiming at meeting or surpassing these unrealistic targets.
We once more urge the police not to relent on this operation in their bid to redress the situation which had become a headache for members of the public, police and even the city planners.
Online Reporter