Maravi

Road traffic accidents

Road traffic accidents
By Editor
Wednesday May 07, 2008 [04:00]

We are losing too many people every day through road traffic accidents.
The University Teaching Hospital is receiving, on average, over 100 cases of road traffic accidents every week. This loss of valuable human resource through road traffic accidents needs to be addressed by serious policy considerations and practical measures.

We are losing over a trillion kwacha every year as a result of road traffic accidents. This constitutes three per cent of our Gross Domestic Product. And statistics show that every year we are recording not less than 12,000 accidents. And we lose at least 1,000 lives through accidents every year, with at least 2,000 of our citizens left with serious injuries and 3,000 with light injuries.

These statistics are indeed worrisome and demand far-reaching measures to correct the situation. It is easy to forget that dry statistics represent real people and real lives. Every single injury and death caused by a road traffic accident is totally preventable. Thus, road traffic accidents remain a serious problem that tragically affects thousands of victims annually. Road accidents rank as the third-highest cause of death after malaria and AIDS in this country.

However, there are a number of actions which can contribute towards a reduction of this problem. Some of them have already been articulated by our Inspector General of Police Ephraim Mateyo and others by other agencies. What remains really is action. Of course, we should continue to seek more and better ways of curbing road traffic accidents and there should be no end to this quest.

Something has to be done to drastically reduce this problem. And we should always remember that driving is a privilege, not a right. Just as we do not licence people who violate certain standards in other areas, we should not hesitate to revoke the licences of those who are bad or reckless drivers, those who lack good judgement.
Automatic licence revocation along with a mandatory jail sentence may be more effective, for certain grave violations, than just licence revocation.

Everything possible should be done to reverse this worrying trend on our roads. The morbidity and mortality that road traffic accidents cause are quite as significant as is the economic burden arising out of these accidents. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that the actual impact of road traffic accidents falls mainly on pedestrians and public service passengers, and to some extent, children.

Yet road traffic accidents have not been really identified as a public health problem in particular and consequently better formulated intervention that needs a multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral strategy is either lacking or limited. This impairs the successful implementation and effectiveness of the programmes or initiatives.

Yes, it cannot be denied that attempts targeted at addressing the problem of road traffic accidents and road traffic injuries have been initiated in Zambia. But lack of policy implementation shows that in terms of human resource, financial and other capital resources appear to be limiting any achievement orimpact in reducing mortality and morbidity due to road traffic accidents. As such, past and current trends in road traffic accidents will continue. Our traffic police, as things stand today, don’t really have what it takes to control bad or reckless driving. As we have experienced with speed controls, more resources and equipment will be needed to curb bad or reckless driving.

We can’t continue to have a reputation of being the country highest prone to road traffic accidents in the SADC region. The number of motor vehicles on our roads is growing at an alarming rate and if this is not matched with more strict road traffic controls, our roads will increasingly become more and more dangerous. We can’t do with a laxity of the days when automobiles on our roads were very few. Today even a humble worker has more than one car. Our roads are increasingly becoming congested with traffic. There is need for sanity on the roads and this won’t come by itself; it has to be introduced by the authorities.

Clearly, there are many ways we can use to try and address this problem – let’s use all of them.

And as Inspector General Mateyo has correctly observed, the country needs to develop and implement a safety strategy that is responsive to the causes of road traffic accidents. It is imperative that we develop a road traffic safety strategy to curb the rising number of accidents and deaths on our roads. We need to take another deep look at our road traffic laws and regulations to try and reduce the carnage on our roads.

Labels: ROADS, TRANSPORT

posted by MrK @ 4:27 AM