The Zambian Road Safety Trust (ZRST) has mourned eight people who died in a head-on collision on Sunday, 3rd May 2015. A journalist from PRIME TV, Mr. Muunga Hansingo, his wife, daughter, and four other family members were pronounced dead at the scene and have been buried today (Wednesday, 6th May 2015) in the same mass grave.
Chairman of the Zambian Road Safety Trust, Mr Daniel Mwamba said:
“Every death is tragic but the loss of 8 people from the same family is appalling and a senseless waste of life. This is a fourth accident involving members of the same family this year.”
Mr. Hansingo and his family were returning from his brother’s wedding in Livingstone when their Toyota Noah collided with an oncoming Land Rover Discovery.
In view of the alarming increase in fatal road crashes, the Trust calls on government to drastically change the transportation policy, giving top priority to safety and sustainable mobility. The current transport policy which was formulated in 2002, over 10 years ago has failed to address the current transport problems.
The new policy should address traffic-danger related injuries and mobility as a public health and human rights issue, design roads taking account of the role of the public space and rights /needs of vulnerable users and employ more appropriate terminology such as Crash, Collision, Injury, in place of ‘accident’.
“I just feel so frustrated by the loss of life of preventable accidents every week. It is very difficult to know what is to be called for, but we don’t want people to be killed in accidents that are avoidable and needless,” he said.
Road traffic accidents do not have a single cause. They result from a number of contributory factors that combine in a way that leads to a road user failing to cope in a particular situation.
The Road and Transport Safety Agency (RTSA) should be proactive in identifying the contributory factors that lead to road accidents, understand how they inter-relate and how they can be modified and prevented, to produce a safer environment and safer road users.
“The lack of proper sustained coordination among the key stakeholders such us the Police, RTSA, Hospital, Fire and Local authorities is a source of concern and a clear demonstration of lack leadership by those paid to protect our lives”. Mr. Mwamba added.
ROAD POLICY! FIRST ALMOST ALL ROADS ESPECIALLY LONG DISTANCE ROADS SHOULD BE DUAL CARRIAGE WAYS WITH HIGH STANDARDS ROAD MARKINGS AND BIG ELABORATE ROAD SIDES AND OVERHEAD INFORMATION BOARDS. JUST COPY THE WAY UK OR SOUTH AFRICA AND BOTSWANA. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RE-INVENT THE WILL. THOSE THINGS ARE THERE- JUST COPY. SERIOUSLY, DEAL WITH CORRUPTION IN POLICE AND THE DRIVERS’ LICENSE ISSUING AUTHORITIES IN ZAMBIA. THEY ARE STINKING CORRUPT THESE INSTITUTIONS AND ALL OUR GOVERNMENTS KNOW THIS BUT JUST IGNORE AND LOOK ON. TAKE DRIVING LESSONS SERIOUSLY TO BE OF 2 PARTS- WRITTEN AND PRACTICAL. ONE CAN’T DO THE LATTER B4 WRITTEN.
You are right Peter, very right. Looks like until one of those big shots in Government including Lungu die or lose their closest relatives, that’s when they will listen.
Corruption stinks in those Depts., you have mentioned. Today’s drivers only know of “D” and “R” (drive and reverse). Whether lights are in Low/high bean at night is immaterial to these youngsters. Roads are being constructed with no drainage system at all but, only trenches that are left gaping. Certain road signs look like they were made by children or ‘kantemba’ owners and do not reflect Government concern.
Today’s drivers are driving with small ‘whiskey’ bottles between their legs and they drink as they drive. This is the new ‘ERA’ and NOT the Zambia that we knew 20 years ago. Police too are…
…Corrupt to the core! Their uniforms look like that of a poorly paid security guards working for ba ‘Phiri’s’ firm. There are NO ROAD markings to talk about. When it rains awe mwandi, bwafya….
Zambia is like a kaponya ran katemba cannot copy what other surrounding countries have developed the roads including road signs no standards to follow as if we don’t have engineers in this country everything we do is fya kubuta.
What a shame. Eg the road signs are small, distances are not long enough to warn drivers that you approaching a roundabout and workmanship isn’t that good. It’s not rocket science please copy and paste what other countries have done