THE Zambian Roads & Highway Safety Group (ZRHSG) welcomes the decision to close all right hand turns on all newly built roads and on busiest roads within Lusaka as announced by the Lusaka City Mayor, Mr Miles Sampa
The Group believes closing all right hand turns will lead to a faster and a smoother flow of traffic around Lusaka as those in the inner lane or the fast lane move faster without any delays or disturbances.
The Group believes this move will also help reduce the many incidences of accidents recorded on these busy roads.
The Group therefore welcomes the Mayor of Lusaka’s recent announcement that all islands starting with the newest roads will be closed permanently thereby making Lusaka a No Right Hand Turn city.
The Zambian Roads and Highway Safety Group has always advocated for turning busiest roads into a No Right Hand Turn roads in the Lusaka CBD- Central Business District – and instead use traffic circles or roundabouts – to enable traffic intending to turn right to go round and make U turns at the traffic circle for them to come around and have access the other lanes.
This will effectively make the busy roads in Lusaka “Turn Left Only” roads and free the inner lanes for fast lanes.
Most delays on the fast lane or inner lane are caused by vehicles blocking the fast lane as they wait for their turn to turn right.
These waitings or dead stops on busy roads like on Addis Ababa, Los Angeles Boulevard, Great East Rd, Kamloops, Burma, Chilimbulu, Katima Mulilo, Tokyo Ring Road among others, have been a cause of many road traffic accidents recorded on these roads.
The Group is hopefully the Lusaka City Council will go further and make by laws that will compel road constructors that all new roads built in Lusaka be “No Right Turn’ Roads.
Another area the by laws will come in handy is to demand that new roads have space for cyclists and pedestrians to walk or use these roads safely.
“When all roads have their islands closed and no vehicles allowed to turn right or cut across busy roads, there will be faster flow of traffic, reduced time spent on the road and reduced number of road traffic accidents recorded. There will also be enough space for pedestrians and cyclists to use.
The Group urges RDA, RTSA and other road safety and transport agencies to develop a habit of listening to advise from advocacy groups like the way the Mayor Miles Sampa has done.
Lusaka Times don’t be lazy, please use Zambian road pic for illustration in your article. Can we not be authentic for once??
So how will people traveling on Great East road from Chelston, Levy, unza etc going to access Mandahill mall? Drive all the way to kabwe roundabout & back? I want to see how our geniuses will sort this one. Good idea though to cut off all right turns where it practically makes sense. Works well in Angola but creates other problems if roundabout is not expanded enough to carry new congestion
IT WILL NEVER WORK JUST MORE PROBLEMS COMING
TAXIS A MAJOR ISSUE BLOCKING LANES AND THEY ARE UNCONTRALABLE AT THIS TIME
ALSO THE MAJORITY OF MOTORISTS HAVE VERY LITTLE ROAD SENSE OR ETIQUITTE
I think it should be a case by case implementation and not a blanket one. I have seen nothing wrong with the Cairo Road U-turns for instance and if those will be abolished it will be a shame.
This is not practical….get ready for more accidents and illegal U turns…which is more dangerous….Zambian road engineers useless
This Group and RATSA must address the issue of BAD driving in Zambia first. Most drivers in Zambia/Lusaka are the source of congestion on the road due to bad driving skills. They don’t know 4 way rules etc. Most of congestion is caused by poor driving skills by drivers.
So the Mayor has suddenly become a road specialist? So when you are busy paying contractors to build these roads, are these factors not taken into consideration? who approves these projects? Please LT expose these lazy people who waste tax payers money. Zambia is not the only country with roads, why can’t we get specialists with experience in traffic management to be part of these projects? Why do we always do things backwards in Zambia? You get charged so much money for feasibility studies and so on but the end results are always shoddy. Ushe ba natilowa?
This sounds like an announcement made without considering many other options that maybe suitable and allow the smooth flow of traffic in the city. This decision by the mayor will only make driving even more difficult on those roads and the directive will result in many conflicts on the road. The road experts step in and resolve this issue instead the mayor giving orders without proper consultations. The least he could have done is assemble a group to carry out a research on the best possible solution to this issue. Are the traffic police going to fining those breaking this directive by the way?
Sort out Dedan Kimathi or Intercity road ASP
First of all, the new roads constructed by Afcons, have not left any slip roads for turning right or left. So from the main road you either turn left or right which slows down the traffic going straight. What were the road engineers thinking? Even i could have thought this out for them. Also all new traffic lights have either been switched off because they have created more congestion or have not been synchronised properly which is also creating more congestion. This has made traffic in lusaka worse than before. Its a night mare going from a to b.
@ quest stop being a massive dlck and give my partners at Lusaka times a break
This is welcome news. I am a busy man who needs to get from point a to b quickly. When I bought my expensive bike people said an a show off. What they didn’t realise is that this bike is faster mode of transport as I can move in between cars.
A $200 million + traffic decongestion project turned into a congestion nightmare ….only in Chambia under our humble leader Edgar Lungu
I can only make a substantial comment after getting a chance to drive on these new roads but I tend to agree with majority of comments/analyses above like Quest and The Observer. It seems to be an act of solving one big problem and creating several other small ones in the process.
On European highways, no right turns are not a problem because there are enough exits on the highways to allow motorists make a comfortable and safe U-turn without driving endlessly to find the next possibilty. I can imagine how many “bottlenecks” this directive will cause on extremely busy inner-city roads like Cairo road with many taxis and buses.
As usual our resident LT impostor would rather troll about something else not how it drove on that section of road this morning or last week as its impossible to do that when you locked up in a flat in the UK.
When and where did a mayor solve traffic problems with a blanket traffic ban announcement?
@ 6 i love Zambia
I also agree with you…bad driving skills is also a big cause of congestion and accidents…people rarely use indicators(turn signal) when turning left or right or changing lanes….imagine driving behind someone who abruptly applies brakes and makes a turn without signaling…and observing speed limit…one is driving 20mph the other one is driving 60mph on the same road
Comment awaiting moderation
ONLY UNDER PF CAN THIS ILLOGICAL THINKING HAPPEN
@13 Tarino Orange
This makaka pompwe Dunderhead Kaizar Zulu has some serious mental issues…imagine pretending to be who is not….just imagining things every hour
This is correct and it works. Those arguing visit Botswana in Gaborone especially. One of the roads should be Addis Ababa drive from the show grounds to the round about (circle). Close all right turns and people will learn how to get to their places. People coming From Chelstone to Mandahill Mall will turn by the robots (traffic lights) before Northmead and access Mandahill Mall on the other side
Miles thinks better than ECL. Hooo I forgot, Miles was the one who litigate winner at the last PF convention.
Can you imagine all those that would like to turn right have to drive all the way somewhere further down the rode to make a U turn, how much congestion would that create. We are all wondering why are all minibuses stoping in the middle of the road, but did anyone see where are the bus stops anf how far apart. On new high ways no walk ways not to mention cycling paths which should be encouraged.
It works well on major highways/motorways with left turn slip roads to a roundabout. I don’t see how it will work on roads like Burma and Chilimbulu with high density residential areas on either side. It should certainly not be a blanket ‘no right turn’ for ALL major roads in Lusaka. That would cause even more inconvenience for a lot of drivers.
Yes good input Mr. M.S, I also agree with Quest the gentlemen who commented in the article about when reporting something relating to our national interest we intend to post pictures that are from other countries like the picture on the content I don’t think that is in Zambia, come on let’s be proud of what we have exaggerating reporting won’t improve the perception of the way ppl sees things!!! Yeah, lazyness is the good description on this reporting content!!!!