Rising road deaths worry State
GOVERNMENT is concerned at the current statistics that indicate that over 900 pedestrians are killed in traffic accidents every year while over 1,500 children are injured says, Transport and Communication Permanent secretary Misheck Lungu. Eng Lungu said children were the most vulnerable to pedestrian related injuries and accidents as 50 percent of all traffic fatalities involved children. Speaking when he joined the Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST) and Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) in the heads up campaign at Heroes Stadium Eng Lungu said Government was worried at the increasing number of pedestrians who were getting injured and killed every day due to carelessness of some drivers. Eng Lungu said there was need for a change in driver behaviour towards pedestrian’s safety adding Government may be compelled to put cameras at pedestrian crossings to save lives. He said it was sad that most drivers did not respect rules on the road but that technology would help to make people respect traffic regulations. “The new technology has helped a lot, cameras that are installed will help us to ensure that drivers adhere to rules on the roads because we are disappointed with the culture of not respecting road rules,”Eng Lungu said. And Puma Energy Zambia board chairperson Jones Sikazwe said the firm was convinced that progress in road safety could be achieved most effectively through multi stakeholder approaches. He said the private sector had a key role to play in reducing the number of road traffic fatalities. Mr Sikazwe said Puma Energy was supporting road safety education for over 2 000 children in Lusaka at Libala Primary School and had a six-month radio programme at Millennium Radio for road safety. Meanwhile ZRST chairman Daniel Mwamba said the organisation had educated over 70, 000 children in the last four years with support from Puma Energy. He said ZRST was focusing on changing the behaviour of motorists for them to respect the rights of pedestrians because they did not own the roads but cars.