Government says road carnages and injuries have become the third major killer after HIV/AIDS and malaria.
Transport, Works, Supply and Communications Deputy Minister Richwell Siamunene said government was concerned about the high number of road traffic accidents in the country.
Mr. Siamunene said road accidents have also become a drain to national resources because of the cost associated with attending to the injured and dead people.
He was speaking in Lusaka today when he handed over a donation of reflector road safety school bags to pupils at New Kanyama basic school.
The donation was sourced by the Zambia Road Safety Trust, Puma Zambia limited and Amend, an international road safety non-governmental organisation.
He said out of the 625 pedestrians who were killed in road mishaps, a high percentage are children in 2014.
He further said government recognizes children’s vulnerability and inexperience on the roads hence it has devised safety measures for children.
And Zambia Road Safety Trust Chairperson Daniel Mwamba disclosed that his organization has trained 1,000 road safety volunteers in the last six months in Lusaka, Copperbelt and Northern provinces.
Mr. Mwamba these volunteers will help prevent children from being hit by vehicles.
Meanwhile, Amend Africa Director Tom Bishops said Africa has got the world’s most dangerous roads with a death rate of 24.1 percent per 100,000 of the population.
Mr. Bishops said Africa has the least motorists in the world with two percent vehicles but contributes 16 percent to the world’s road fatalities annually
Cars do not kill people, its bad drivers that kills!
Tackle the causes of these accidents instead of moaning over them.
Theses factors range from bad drivers, open pits on the roads, bad road design and signage, drunk driving and excessive speeding among them.
I have also noticed that tree branches have replaced triangles and we seem to be comfortable with this as a nation.
next time i take the car for fitness test i definitely will have branches instead of triangles.
police set up roadblocks mostly where there are potholes and all that matters when they stop you is road tax, how about state of the road, safety to the motorist etc?
We need to go back to the drawing board and look at everything… I mean everything concerning road safety, otherwise the carnage continues.
We are just a lazy nation
A Zambian guy was showing off on Facebook, how he survived a punctured tyre while he drove at 220km/h on finished tyres. Thats how foolish and irresponsible most Zambian drivers are.
led Govt ban impotation of vehicles below 2006,especially Fun Cargo,spacios,Alterzzer,Noah.Reduce customs duty on latest models to promote sanity on our roads just like in other SADC countries,there so many “amawaya” on our roads mwebantu.
Makes me never want to go to Zambia.
How can HIV/AIDS be rated the first when there is no disease called HIV/AIDS. Imagine an HIV infected person dies from Malaria or Cholera, under what umbrella will the death be recorded.