Let there be headlights, please!

Gerald Maguranyanga  Traffic Friday
Despite shrill cries of such columns as Traffic Friday, if truth were told, statistics show that Zimbabwe is still a long way from descending into utter road traffic anarchy when compared to the miserable standards of the worst of the worst. In Africa countries like Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa are the absolute bad guys. In Asia, India is the disgraced champion of what Traffic Friday would call Road Traffic Murder. In South America it’s Peru where an ordinary car ride to the local shops could well prematurely deliver you to your Creator!

Nigeria (with 162-plus deaths per 100 000 people) had the second highest, or thereabouts, road traffic accident fatalities in the world, as bemoaned by the country’s Federal Minister of Health, Professor Chukwu.

Kenya suffers a grim problem with motor car accident deaths. In fact, it is staggering that a few years ago, for all its reasonable sophistication, a formal UN report damned Kenya, strongly suggesting that, per capita, it had the highest rate of road accidents in the world (510 fatal accidents per 100 000 vehicles, as compared to second-ranked South Africa, with 260 fatalities.

Contrast that with the UK, with 20 only. In an attempt to improve Kenya’s appalling record, it is reported that the government obliged the owners of the country’s 25 000 matatus (commuter minibuses), the backbone of public transportation, to install new safety equipment on their infamous vehicles.

It is painful that over 90 percent of all road traffic deaths occur in developing countries. According to the WHO, road traffic accidents delivered an enormous 1,24 million deaths worldwide in 2010, marginally down from 1,26 million in 2000. Half of all road traffic deaths were among pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. (In an upcoming edition, Traffic Friday will meticulously expose the distressing, co-starring role in Zimbabwean RTAs, played by the carefree pedestrian.)

Zimbabwe, per capita, is a noteworthy contributor to the official 1 000 000-plus worldwide RTA deaths in 2013. It is easy to see why. Zimbabwean drivers are masters of many bad driving habits that caused us to be contributors to such appalling numbers not least of which is a puzzling reluctance to switch on headlights in the early dusk, in poor light conditions or around dawn, so that they may not only see better, but also quite importantly, that they may be seen by other road users.

Cyclists (including many security guards whose preferred mode of travel, probably  a result of a perennial tight budget) constitute a sizeable number of road fatalities. The last time Traffic Friday checked, motorcyclists were obliged, by law to keep their headlamp on, as it is easy to miss a motorcyclist in your rear-view mirror or one oncoming.

Unfortunately, many motorcyclists seem unwilling to switch their lights on. Cyclists ride about at night like dark demons, completely unlit. Of course, in Zimbabwe they always get away with it. No one cares.

One evening last week, I drove from Ruwa back into Harare, in a light drizzle, well after 6pm. In obvious rapidly deteriorating light conditions, I could not believe (not that it was anything new) the plenteous vehicles that drove headlight-free, even though it was, by any standards, dark.

The overcast conditions, the rain and the fast-disappearing sun obviously demanded that every vehicle on the road at that time had their headlights on. In Zimbabwe, that is a tough ask.

A little knowledge is dangerous. Most motorists seem to not understand the difference between headlights and park lights. It’s a no brainer what park lights are meant for! As the name suggests, they were designed for use when parked, especially on the roadside, to aid visibility in poor light conditions.

I am sorry but because this is Zimbabwe, strange happenings are exhibited by the most unlikely of people! How do people so literate confuse park lights for headlights and drive on park lights?

Though headlights may be seemingly more important than the lights on the back of your vehicle, in fact all the lights; stop lights, brake lights, hazards and left-right indicators are quite vital. Poor lights may be a matter of life-and-death. It is important that motorists responded immediately to any faulty exterior vehicle light.

Why then, if all external lights are of such grave importance, do Zimbabweans seem so relaxed about them? My easy opinion is that the origin of the couldn’t-care-less attitude is rooted in, progressively, poor driving school standards that are not meticulous enough to drive home the importance of correct and consistent vehicle lights use.

Traffic Friday believes that if motorists exhibited an unending unsafe habit, then that famed long arm of the law should catch up. Sometimes a spanking is the only language some humanoids understand.

The Zimbabwean Highway Code, the national road traffic constitution, demands that all drivers (not some please) switched on headlights between 5.30pm and 6am. No ifs, no buts!

The no-lights disappointment worsens in the wet season when, many times, daylight conditions could rapidly deteriorate due to overcast and rainy conditions common then. Daylight could decline so badly that overhead street lights automatically switch on, even at midday.

In the face of such overwhelming evidence that it is time to light up, disinclined Zimbabwean drivers will still not switch on headlights because “it’s not night yet”! A poor light condition in the day time is routinely ignored.

Whilst we are playfully wrangling about turning on lights in the dark, others have moved up; they are now debating improving visibility in the day! Wikipedia says that in Europe, predominantly overcast conditions mean that in many countries, to counter low light and enhance safety, Daytime Running Lights (DRLs) are mandatory.

When it comes to DRLs, one of the arguments that come up is their consumption of precious fuel.  Daytime running lights, required in many countries for decades, are headlights that run any time the car is on (the tail-lights and other lights may remain off). Canada, Denmark and Sweden mandate DRLs in an effort to prevent daytime accidents.

Opponents though argue that the lights distract oncoming drivers and make people who don’t have daytime running lights even less visible and therefore more prone to accidents.

DRLs would be a long shot for Zimbabwean drivers. Traffic Friday encourages the traffic police and other traffic regulatory bodies to educate drivers on, and enforce the law regarding mandatory times for switching on headlights. Let’s not descend into the wicked league of the worst-of-the-worst.

Unchecked, the local driver would happily drive along in poor light conditions with little, but maybe, preferably with no lights! Dark Africa?

It’s a Friday; please keep the driving “happy, happy; happy-happy-happy!”

Gerald Maguranyanga moderates Road Safety Africa, on www.facebook.com/RoadSafetyAfrica, an interactive community page that solicits ideas to curb road traffic accidents in Zimbabwe and Africa. Contacts: WhatsApp only – +263 772 205 300; email: [email protected]