Online Reporter
Dr Matthew Mare
In countries that were once framed as the least developed, building owners are being mandated to install lights and cameras to ensure public safety.
Concurrently, the relevant arms of the Government must ensure that AI cameras are installed along roads to curb reckless driving and provide credible evidence in case of traffic accidents and hit-and-run incidents.
The numbers released by the police are not only shocking, but also an early warning indicator that a pro-active solution is now needed.
The first step is to scan for best practices in other jurisdictions on how they curb crime and enforce traffic regulations.
In modern times, it’s widely held that technology cannot be avoided. The need to install camera surveillance is long overdue, and according to the Zimbabwe Republic Police, more than 2 000 pedestrians were killed or injured in hit-and-run road traffic accidents between January and March this year. This is not only shocking, but calls for immediate remedial action.
The quality of driving has alarmingly depreciated, and the old-fashioned tactics of clamping and chasing each other are outdated and contributing to some of these statistics. There is need to develop a better policing approach that reduces human interaction.
The system must ensure that anyone caught violating traffic regulations is unable to pass the tollgate until they are paid up. The benefits accrued include effective revenue collection, smart policing, accountability and improved driving skills.
The problem is now beyond the scope of physical and traditional policing tactics. An AI-installed camera notices an errant driver and starts recording the vehicle while simultaneously sending a red signal to the control centre. The world is now automated, and with video evidence, prosecution is accelerated. We have several cases that remain inconclusive due to lack of incriminating evidence.
Not only are we having hit-and-run cases, but we have a plethora of traffic crimes like smash-and-grab, pick-rob-and-dump, road carnage, turning every space into a pick-up point, obscene language from touts, and driving against incoming traffic.
These endanger public safety and point to the need for a practical solution rather than ad hoc operations.
President Mnangagwa once went to Dubai accompanied by key public officials, where he publicly ordered them to embrace technology to curb crime.
There is a Presidential order, and, in public policy, presidential proclamations provide public policy direction. What is stopping the execution?
We are a society that is accustomed to manual ways of confronting problems. Brilliant solutions continue to die due to excessive procrastination and technophobia.
The Parliaments that approve budgets are equally to blame for allocating few resources to digital technology and research. Research is the veins and a pulse of a nation-state. What drives our actions and vision as a nation, if not research?
Ordinarily, the country should establish a think tank following a tear-jerking hit-and-run story, among other human security threats; the research should focus on an alternative solution and future case-scenario mapping.
There is need for a Whole-of-Government approach to zero tolerance for hit-and-run. Accidents mean the family would never have closure after the sad loss, and the police would put more resources into trying to separate murder from a pure hit-and-run case.
Families end up using more resources to search for the truth by consulting faith- and traditional healers. In addition, there are no counselling centres to console traffic-related victims and their immediate families.
After an accident, if one survives, our clinic focuses on treatment and the leftover trauma that is associated with being involved in an accident. In the event of death, the focus is on burial, and yet the bereavement is one key area that is being overlooked.
Whilst technology focuses on crime reduction, health facilities must focus on comprehensive care for accident victims to ensure that there is total healing physically and psychologically. Among the 2000 victims of hit and run are family pillars whose loss goes beyond the physical loss.
My plea to the relevant authorities is that driving in general should be prioritised because failing to stop after an accident indicates the person concerned is not a competent driver. If suggestions are anything to go by, CMED must be given regulatory powers over driving schools to standardise driving in Zimbabwe.
There is no regulatory authority in Zimbabwe whose primary duty is to standardise driving. The need for an oversight board is now an urgent matter that Parliament must be seized with.
Dr Matthew Mare (PhD), [email protected]
