Road safety awareness a shared responsibility
ROAD traffic accidents in Zimbabwe are apparently emerging as the leading cause of deaths in the country after HIV/ Aids, malaria and cancer. According to the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ), the principal agent in promoting traffic safety in the country, an average of 1 800 people are killed on Zimbabwean roads annually while 30 000 others are injured.
These figures mean that about five people die every day on our roads and 38 others are injured daily.
It is disturbing to note that there are many unreported accidents which if added to the reported cases, the figures would be much higher.
Although night driving, bad roads, stray animals, decrepit vehicles and poor vehicle maintenance have been cited as some of the major causes of the numerous casualties on the country’s roads, the TSCZ however, says at least 90 percent of road traffic accidents are as a result of human error.
These human mistakes include failure to give way, use of cell phones while driving, speeding, misjudgment, over-taking and reversing errors, following too close, fatigue and negligent pedestrians or cyclists.
As December draws closer, should we all brace ourselves for the frightening new deaths statistics as people travel to their different destinations for the holidays? This is a sad state of affairs and something should be done to reduce the carnage on our roads. Road safety therefore remains a major concern in Zimbabwe.
Given that people are prone to making mistakes and violating traffic laws, intense road safety awareness campaigns or programmes should be employed to sensitise people on road safety and bring about behaviour change.
The loss of human life due to road accidents causes grief, pain and untold economic suffering to families and relatives of the deceased.
Road safety is a shared responsibility and everyone should take full interest in safety issues by demanding desirable road safety practices from drivers and report reckless drivers to law enforcement agents.
Road safety campaigns can be defined as purposeful attempts to inform, persuade and motivate a population (or sub-group of a population) to change its attitudes and or behaviours to improve road safety, using organised communications involving specific media channels within a given time period.
It can have multiple purposes such as informing the public of new or little known traffic rules, increasing problem awareness or convincing people to refrain from hazardous behaviours and adopting safe ones instead.
It is also against this background that the TSCZ once adopted the road safety campaign theme: “Eradicating Human Error in Road Traffic Collisions”, as a direct way of addressing road traffic challenges posed by human error.
There is no doubt that road safety awareness campaigns are an important tool to communicate with road users and share safe driving tips for example, on the distractive effect of using a mobile phone when driving or what to do when experiencing symptoms of fatigue.
TSCZ information, communications and technical manager Mr Tatenda Chinoda said together with other ‘behavioural’ measures such as law enforcement, education, training, and even infrastructure to some extent, road safety campaigns were effective ways to influence the public to behave more responsibly in traffic.
He said the TSCZ in partnership with various other stakeholders who also promote traffic safety such as the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) traffic department, Vehicle Inspectorate Department (VID), Nyaradzo Group, National Blood Services of Zimbabwe (NBSZ), and artistes among others stakeholders, have embarked on a number of road safety awareness campaigns, aimed at educating drivers, conductors and pedestrians on the importance of adhering to road and traffic regulations as a means to curb accidents.
Some of the road safety awareness campaigns being conducted by the TSCZ and aimed at changing unwanted behaviours are Fambai kwakachena/Hambani kusakhanya/ Avoid night driving and Chengetedza Upenyu, #Slowdown #Tyaira Pore-Pore/ Hamba Kancane Kancane.
Some also feature prominent artistes like Baba and Amai Charamba, Sandra Ndebele and Ras Caleb portraying the very behaviour that the campaign is supposed to discourage. This is based on the contention that if people see how stupid, ugly and silly, it looks when other people act in a certain way, hopefully in the future they will think twice before acting like that themselves.
“Besides partnering with other stakeholders, we’re also conducting road safety campaigns in schools and churches for passenger rights awareness as well as village road safety awareness galas where we are targeting traditional leaders and training them to become road safety champions as well as helping them to generate collective road safety consciousness.
“For the success of these campaigns, we’re riding high on existing Government structures like the Civil Protection Unit. Meanwhile, the challenge we’re facing is that we need to cultivate more public private partnerships so that we have more road safety outreach programmes. We’re also appealing to non-governmental organisations to partner with us (TSCZ) in this life saving cause,” said Mr Chinoda.
Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Dr Joram Gumbo who once described road accidents as “a hidden epidemic,” said Government’s priority was to reduce traffic-related deaths.
“As you know, the Government is committed to the United Nations (UN) Decade of Action for Road Safety which seeks to reduce road deaths by 50 percent by the year 2020; consequently, education and awareness are priority areas in achieving this goal since road users need to understand how to properly use the road,” said Dr Gumbo.
Applauding the TSCZ for its ‘commendable’ safety education as well as ‘visible’ road safety awareness programmes, Dr Gumbo said there is a serious need to channel more resources towards awareness programmes in order to achieve the tenets of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) concluded that road safety campaigns were able to influence behaviour change when used in conjunction with legislation and law enforcement. However, the report also states that “… when used in isolation, education, information and publicity generally do not deliver tangible and sustained reductions in deaths and serious injuries”.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development chairman who is also Chegutu West MP Cde Dexter Nduna said intensification of road safety campaigns was a step in the right direction as it would help reduce road carnage from five deaths per day to the global average of three.
Cde Nduna who said there was also need to capacitate the police and VID to enable them to inspect all vehicles for fitness, suggested a cocktail of measures that can be implemented to minimise road accidents.
“There’s need to establish accident stabilisation centres at all toll gates so as to make sure that accident victims are attended to at the golden hour after the crash since 70 percent of accident victims die due to lack of attention.
“We also need to integrate all transport management systems in which we see the VID connected to Zinara, Road Motor Transportation (RMT), Central Vehicle Registry (CVR), Vehicle Theft Squad (VTS), toll gates and driving schools, the reason being that all vehicles that are not road worthy can be switched out of the system when they pass through toll gates or police road blocks. This can only be done if all the transport management systems are electronically integrated.
“Another issue is that before a passenger service vehicle gets an operator’s licence or permit, the driver or operator of that vehicle should be scrutinised to see if he or she doesn’t have a fraudulent certificate of competence, and that the driver is above 25 years of age, has five years of experience and has also done a defensive driving course,” said Cde Nduna.
He further suggested the introduction of electronic systems for the issuance of passenger insurance saying the continued use of manual permits promotes corruption.
“We need to embrace Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in order to reduce corruption in the issuance of passenger insurance. This is a good move as it would also ensure people are compensated in the event of a road accident.”
A traffic and safety researcher Mr Abel Moyo suggested that speeding, alcohol abuse and driver fatigue should be monitored by 24-hour roadside inspections at roadblocks.
“There should be a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to those committing serious road offences. Professional drivers should also be better trained and regularly evaluated, with the drivers’ skills being rigorously tested before a permit is granted.
“The Government should also provide functional cameras that can capture speeding vehicles; give road construction and maintenance contracts to companies that would deliver on time and according to quality specifications. Government should also fast track the development of the rail system to reduce pressure on roads,” said Mr Moyo.