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Gerald Maguranyanga Traffic Friday
Jaywalking is an enormous headache and most countries encounter grim challenges trying to correct the ingrained, awful traffic habits of pedestrians that negotiate the road like they were crossing from their en suite shower to their bedroom.
Wikipedia describes jaywalking, a popularised slang term, as the illegal and reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway.
Examples of jaywalking include a pedestrian crossing at a traffic light-controlled intersection disregarding a “stop” signal displayed.
Such an act is punished heavily by authorities in stricter jurisdictions in Europe and North America.
In developed countries, it is illegal to cross the road in front of moving vehicles, if there is a pedestrian crossing within, say, 100 metres from the pedestrian.
Often, there are signs strictly prohibiting this barbaric practice, which is also punishable with a deterrent fine.
In Singapore for example, jaywalking is punishable by up to three months in a reformatory.
We will dare not even mention contrasting Africa and our Zimbabwe in that same breath: we are an untamed jungle!
Next door in neighbouring South Africa, they are grappling with the challenge of jaywalking as statistics say between 40 and 50 percent of the thousands upon thousands that are killed on SA roads annually is composed of happy-go-lucky pedestrians. We are no better in Zimbabwe.
In recent days, official pronouncements have been made, threatening the arrest and fining of irresponsible pedestrians, all in an attempt to tame the endemic jaywalking, particularly in Harare.
The schools closest to the CBD such as Prince Edward, Girls’ High, Queen Elizabeth, Allan Wilson, David Livingstone, Blakiston etc; seemingly do not do much, in my opinion, to teach their students how to safely negotiate roadways.
The children, on their way to and from school, instead provide quite a handy manual of How Not to Cross the Road.
It’s an uninhibited and precarious free-for-all!
In days gone by, most schools had an internal traffic safety club, with a knowledgeable teacher assigned to teach students road rule adherence, in conjunction with visiting national traffic safety authorities.
In any case, I know all the schools mentioned above, would dish out unsympathetic punishments of one sort or the other; including but not limited to a few strokes of cane on the soft rear end of caught jaywalkers.
That official “abuse” kept the jaywalking by schoolchildren to a minimum, and the motorists happy!
Of course, it helped that Harare’s vehicular and human traffic was then in the few thousands; unlike the unrelenting mass exodus we endure today.
Enter Cameron Street, Julius Nyerere Way, Samora Machel Avenue, Fourth Street, Leopold Takawira Street etc; and you may well have ventured into some of the very worst crossings of the road anywhere in the world.
No disrespect, but Harare CBD pedestrian traffic can hold their own in competition with Mumbai, Lagos, Cairo and even good old Johannesburg; the world’s bastions of offending pedestrian behaviour.
Harare pedestrians would be award-winning red-light runners!
(I am happy that I have taught myself, and my children, when walking, the discipline of crossing only on a green light at a traffic light controlled-intersection, whether there’s a vehicle in the vicinity or not.
It is entirely another matter though when the traffic lights go dead.)
Running a red light is illegal and dangerous, whether perpetrated by a car or a pedestrian. Scampering across the road and ducking cars in motion, foolishly “standing on the white demarcation line” looks ugly and is a potential danger to self.
It gets worse; uniformed police members add to the madness, and yet these were supposed to be exemplary. Soldiers and correctional services staff in full regalia multiply the potent mix.
So how do we crack this prevalent misconduct which shows that pedestrian fatalities in developing countries far exceed those of developed countries?
MBH Architects SA insists that jaywalking can only be resolved through much education of pedestrians.
They add that unless a cost effective method can be devised whereby pedestrians do not have to ever cross any roads, then this interaction between pedestrian and motorist is here to stay.
Education, and more education of pedestrians becomes the only feasible solution.
Without that, pedestrians will forever be at the mercy of motorists, and perhaps vice versa.
Another traffic safety analyst candidly observes that, generally, our “modern” way of life has deteriorated so much that we do not even care to teach our children or enforce traditional life-and-limb saving strict rules about how to and how not to cross the road anymore.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s — I was in my eye-roving youth then — we knew, for example, that uniformed girls from QE and GHS schools were not allowed to roam aimlessly like lost souls in the city, frustrating many teen boys’ ulterior motives!
Additionally, crossing the road willy-nilly in school uniform attracted severe sanctions.
When schoolchildren are in uniform, to a great extent, we expect them to adhere to a certain disciplined code of behaviour. Why that it does not happen anymore?
I would like to see, for starters, in addition to other measures, the police utilise loud-hailers to warn pedestrians against the dangers of jaywalking; if that fails to produce an immediate positive response, then earnestly, begin the arrests.
On the other hand, and sadly so, most motorists seemingly do not have an idea what a zebra/pedestrian crossing was meant for.
The clear and present danger for pedestrians is that blindly crossing at a pedestrian crossing could very well get you mowed down.
So it would also be ideal for the police to station themselves by the busiest crossings and penalise wayward motorists disrespecting pedestrians.
Traffic Friday urges the head of any school where there is need for safe crossing points (robots and zebras) nearby to demand them from local authorities.
Also, initiating a school Traffic Safety Club would help much.
Traffic safety must be a consistent subject for every students.
Food for thought for Ministry of Education.
It’s a Friday; please keep the driving “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. Feedback: WhatsApp only: +263 772 205 300; email: [email protected]
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