Remove hazardous joke
I DO not know if other road users have also observed a hazardous joke on Great North Road. As you come from Lusaka going north just after the 10-miles hill, there is lorry cab raised to some height within the road reserve on the left hand side, the turn off to Moomba School.
Under it pirate taxis, vegetable vendors and mobile money hawkers are found waiting for customers and pupils to and from Moomba Secondary School wait for transport.
When I saw it for the first time, I was so frightened that I almost reported the incident to a Police Officer who had mounted a check point three kilometres up north.
But then I realised, he was just an innocent soul who could have had little or probably no understanding of what constitutes safety in the transportation system.
Being concerned for public safety especially that of unsuspecting motorists, I modelled what type of accident this could be. That of a single vehicle hitting into the poles hosting the raised lorry cab, dropping it onto the national highway where vehicles follow each other closely at accelerated speeds considering that they are drifting down hill!
It could be a serious multiple vehicle accident. It would involve persons in the vehicle that hits the pole, the vehicle (lorry cab) from above, vegetable vendors, mobile money hawkers pirate taxis crews and pupils waiting for transport. The vehicles following behind would also enter the event as each one of them encounters the multiple accident zone, it can be fatal.
I know the Road Development Agency (RDA), the landlord of the road reserve could be getting handsome fees from the owner of the lorry cab unless it is part of the road furniture that we do not know of?
Looking at this safety hazard made me wonder what the role of the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) was.
Are they not supposed to carry out hazard identification and risk assessment as they patrol the highways? Do we, the professionals the nation so much rely on as implementing officers really understand what the President means when he says let us end road carnage or we are as good as lay people waiting for another presidential address?
If a multiple fatality occurred there, God forbid, could we go for a commission of inquiry when the causal schemata is so clearly visible?
In transportation systems, physical elements, like the one on GNR in the vicinity of an highway can cause road traffic accidents not only involving one party, but can be multiple. This cannot be classified as pure circumstance, but failure by professionals to operationalise to analyse the effects of salient features like that in the environment.
My appeal is that we do not need your good English in advertisements, but use the English to terminate the tenancy agreement for 2021 and if it is paid for, refund the lorry owner and advise him/her to take it to his premises and provide entertainment there.
A few days ago, RDA were on radio over “respect for road reserves,” the 100 or so metres, but that raised lorry cab is very close, less that five metres from a busy national highway. I know it could be providing good scenery, especially with the coming of phone cameras, but can this be at the expense of road safety?
Come on guys, the nation expects more from you, not hazardous jokes of this nature.