Make Night in Zambia Travel Safe!
The Zambia Roads and Highway Safety Group (ZRHSG) has noted that most roads and highways in Zambia are not fit for night travel thereby making night travel in Zambia a very risky undertaking.
The Zambia Roads and Highway Safety Group has observed that many roads in Zambia are not equipped with light reflective materials and proper road signage to inform, guide and caution the driver during night travel.
“Apart from the new Chingola – Solwezi road, new sections of the Ndola – Kitwe dual carriage way, some sections of the Great East road after Luangwa Bridge heading East and the Zimba –Livingstone stretch, most highways have no night appropriate markings and light reflective signage. The close to 700km of the Lusaka – Mongu Road has zero or little visibility,” said Group Admin Mthoniswa Banda.
The Zambia Roads and Highway Safety Group urges the Government to ensure every road designed, approved and built this year takes into consideration the need for improved light reflective signage and safety needs of night travellers, pedestrians and cyclists to reduce on the already high number of accidents and fatalities recorded last year.
According to Zambia police report, more than 1,700 people perished in close to 30,700 road traffic accidents recorded in Zambia in 2019 alone.
“Our belief is that one life lost on our road is one life too many and we feel that upgrading all our roads to acceptable standards for night travel will in a way ensure that all Zambian roads will become safe for use during the day and during the night.
“We also believe that when night travel is made safe, more and more people will opt to travel at night, especially heavy slow vehicles, there by decongesting our roads which become congested as early as 05 hours with desperate motorists trying to get to their destination before businesses open,” says Group Admin Mthoniswa Banda.
The Zambia Roads and Highway Safety Group appeals to road constructions companies and local authorities still working on new roads to ensure all four ways, stop points and dangerous curves are well marked and visible signs placed to warn the traveling public on the dangers of these points to reduce chances of accidents happening.
The Zambia Roads and Highway Safety Group (ZRHSG) is an online road safety group with over 2,450 road safety ambassadors and is for sharing personal experiences and knowledge on road safety issues on Zambian roads and Highways by road users. These discussions will help identify road safety issues, bad policies and bad road designs requiring improvement by government and its agencies such as RTSA, RDA, NRFA, ZP and local councils.
Every week, the ZRHSG will produce a statement summarising the group discussion and sharing this opinion with Road Safety agencies and other policy makers so they improve Zambia’s Road Safety.
Mthoniswa Banda
Group Admin – Zambia Roads & Highway Safety Group (ZRHSG)
This is very true. It’s actually not just highways but also roads in residential areas and in all towns.
Correct. We actually need to invest in high speed light trains. Not these corruption padded asphalt roads.
Even gravel roads are not safe for night travel
It goes to show that its not only the drivers at fault for accidents, the institutions that are responsible for road safety may also be not doing their jobs satisfactorily…. RATSA?????
The problem is trhat people concerned run to tthe media instead of approaching the relavant aouthority first.No wonder good obsvarvations like this one are not taken seriouly.Comment please!!
Zambians, emulate this style of writing. Mr Banda’s message is awesomely powerful.Why? The article is persuasive and insult-free.
Political commentators and your cadres better elevate your contributions to this level.
This is not News. Zambians have known this for 55 years and have done nothing about it. What city in Zambia has street lighting? None and citizens are resigned to living in darkness. We have taken this as being normal. Until we have a Kagame like President things will only move from bad to worse.
IT IS MISLEADING TO SINGLE OUT ZAMBIA AMONG OTHER POOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. POTHOLES ARE COMMONPLACE IN POOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. THIS IS SAD AND AT THE SAME THE THE HARSH REALITY OF POVERTY. IT IS ADVISABLE TO FOCUS ON REAL STATISTICS AND THEN TO GATHER CONCRETE EVIDENCE ON THE REAL CAUSES OF ACCIDENTS. WHEN SOBER AND EXPERIENCED AND DRIVING A WELL SERVICED MACHINE THE MOTORIST CAN FEEL FREE TO DRIVE ON MAJOR HIGH WAYS IN THE COUNTRY. DAY TIME IS RECOMMENDED FOR MOTORISTS WHO DO NOT HAVE MASTERY OF THE TERRAIN. TAKE TIME TO SOW FEAR IN THE PUBLIC.
Indeed. Driving in Zambia is treacherous whatever time of day. People tend to drink and drive, and there are too many vehicles in Lusaka, adding to air pollution. I think Cairo road should be designated ‘No Vehicles’ zone – pedestrian only. All non service vehicles should be shunted to Cha Cha Cha road and beyond.
Comparing Zambia’s death traps to dubai roads proved just how useless some of our Zambian leaders really are.
No wonder there is always accidents on the highways and especially at night. What happens to all the toll fees, m/v licence fees, fuel levy etc that we pay.
Ok so who will be getting this contract to put money in their pocket? We know the roads are good but without furnishings. Very interesting that there is no mention about the agency responsible for road safety in Zambia (RTSA). Ku sikulu muyendela chani? poor finishing all the time.
When I was in Zambia and we were travelling inter city with visitors from abroad I always used to wonder why they were scared of night travel on intercity as they said it was not safe for cars bypassing each other at 170km/hr…its only when I visited places around the world I realised how an safe it was.
The only problem we have with upgrading road infrastructure, its corruption look at the Ndola Lusaka highway all it need was $400m to upgrade but they greedy politician to advantage and inflated the valuation to $1.2 billion