The Zimbabwe Republic Police reports that two fatal accidents were witnessed in the country yesterday with nine lives being lost. It is sad that our country’s roads continue to be death traps killing people on a regular basis.
Government has done quite well in sprucing up the road infrastructure in the country in a bid to eliminate road carnage linked to poor roads. The work done on the Harare to Beitbridge highway speaks to the efforts being undertaken by the Government, but still the accidents are not subsiding.
That leaves us with human error and faulty vehicles and this is where the Government comes in. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development has a huge task of coming up with mitigation strategies towards making our roads safer.
One of the key elements is to make sure the existing guidelines and statutes are enforced to the letter and spirit. In recent memory, the Ministry has told the nation that public transport buses will now be fitted with speed limiting devices, and these are mandatory. Is this being enforced? Some of the speeds witnessed on the roads do not speak to vehicles with speed limits, enter the latest one directed at kombis restricting them to a 60km radius and like the buses, fitting them with speed limits. This is a very welcome development but the key is in making sure enforcing of this is sustained.
A law or guideline without enforcement is as good as dead and this is where the Ministry needs to come to the party. Undercooked drivers, un-roadworthy vehicles are all but a functioning weaker systems within the Ministry and the parastatals under it. While every intervention by the Ministry, it is clear more needs to be done not only at policy level but the manner in which the policies are enforced.