Poor choices

Sat, 22 Oct 2016 10:12:59 +0000

ZAMBIA has one of the worst road traffic accident rates in the world, with almost 1,900 lives dashed every year – leaving behind a trail of broken hearts and bones, lives changed for ever and sickening feeling of promising dreams gone awry.

As we speak more than 1,000 people have been killed on our roads in the first half of 2016, suggesting that we are this year heading for another record statistics of death and destruction caused by road traffic accidents.

On Thursday night, 16 people died when two buses, a Higer and Mitsubishi Rosa, collided near Kaoma on the Lusaka-Mongu road. According to the police, the accident happened when the Higer bus from Mongu tried to overtake a stationary vehicle and collided with the on-coming Rosa bus carrying 21 passengers and two crewmen.

Fifteen passengers from the Rosa bus and the driver died on the spot, five survived but were all injured. On the big Higer bus, all the 30 passengers on board were injured and were admitted to Kaoma District Hospital, together with the five passengers from the Rosa bus.

The accident comes in the midst of an intensified Government campaign to roll back the frightening statistics on our roads. Newly appointed Transport and Communication minister Brian Mushimba this week launched the campaign on television during which he called for an audit and radical measures to stop the ‘‘unacceptable behaviour’’ that leads to road crashes.

The minister was echoing the sentiments of the Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST) this week that poor choices by road users are responsible for the soaring death and injury rate on Zambian roads.

We concur with the ZRST that the human factor is totally to blame for most of the accidents. The attitude and behaviour of our motorists contribute significantly to the turning of our roads into rivers of blood.

Many accidents are caused by individual motorists and pedestrians who make poor choices – through distracted driving while on the phone or talking to passengers; lack of concentration and anticipation; impatience; drunken driving or impaired driving caused by lack of sleep, fatigue and use of drugs.

While we acknowledge that our roads are not some of the best in the world in terms of width, smooth surface and markings, they are not that bad. Our law enforcement agencies, the Road Transport and Safety Agency and the Zambia Police traffic section, are doing their best under the circumstances to mitigate the situation.

Much as we would have wished for increased effective management of road traffic laws through massive road patrols, we are the first to admit that traffic law enforcers lack the resources and capacity to achieve their goal. But they have risen to the challenge: the prosecution of 87 road traffic offenders in Lusaka fast track courts this week alone is one such example.

That brings us back to the core issue of human error. This is how Mr Daniel Mwamba of the ZRST put it: ‘‘Individuals are given choices (on the road), but what we see in most crashes is irresponsible actions played out; the importance and value of their own lives and how poor choices impact others (are ignored).

‘‘By getting road users to think about their actions, even only for a few minutes, we could drive down the number of needless and devastating accidents.’’

As Government pushes to reduce death, serious injury and destruction of property on our roads, it boils down to us as individuals, including potential victims, to ask ourselves: what is it we are doing or can we do to avoid the next fatal accident?

One moment of poor choice caused the death of 16 people in the Kaoma accident on Thursday night.  Thirty-five others are battling for their lives in hospital. How many more poor choices are we to make before we realise we are killing our country slowly through the carnage on our roads?