The Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) recorded a fatal road traffic accident yesterday at about 22:29 hours along the Great North Road in Mpika District of Muchinga Province involving a bus in which seven (7) passengers died on the spot while 35 others sustained serious injuries.
The RTSA, the Zambia Police, the Fire Brigade and Paramedics from Chilonga Mission Hospital conducted the accident rescue operation throughout the night and part of this morning to retrieve the trapped bodies.
Preliminary accident investigations have revealed that the accident happened when the driver of the bus, registration number ABE 5433 belonging to Nicpro Trading Limited lost control after hitting a pothole and thereafter plunged into a stream at a place called Kapoko 48 Kilometers South of Mpika. The bus was heading to Lusaka from Nakonde.
The accident investigations have further established that the driver and the operator neglected or failed to ensure that the bus in question was parked at 22:00 hours as indicated by the Global Position System (GPS) report.
The RTSA is of the view that driver and the operator defied the provisions of the Statutory Instrument (SI) No. 76 of 2016 and Statutory Instrument (SI) No. 51 of 2021 which restricts the movement of Public Service Vehicles (PSVs) at night, thereby putting the lives of the passengers in danger resulting in loss of lives which could have been avoided.
From the foregoing, the Agency has given seven (07) days ultimatum to Nicpro Trading to show cause why the Road Service Licence should not be suspended for violating the Road Traffic Act No. 11 of 2002, a condition upon which the operator’s licence was granted. The Agency has also summoned the driver of the bus to show cause why his Driving Licence should not be revoked for endangering the lives of the passengers.
And RTSA Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gladwell Banda, has described the crash as unfortunate stating that the constant loss of lives is a source of concern and has since warned that the Agency will enforce the provisions of the Road Traffic Act No. 11 of 2002 in totality to mitigate the recent spike in road crashes.
Mr. Banda has conveyed a message of condolences to the bereaved families and wished the injured passengers a quick recovery.
RTSA is a joke, it has never revoked any license of any Bus transport business operator. And yet many many Zambians have perished over the years due to these fatal accidents – usually avoidable. Initially, RTSA will state the bus operators involved in these acccidents where so many people die will revoke their licenses. Alas!, a few days later the buses are back on the road. Its a shame money to RTSA is more important than Zambians lives. RTSA in its current state is unfit for purpose and require radical changes.
That’s why we need police on our roads. If we feel the police are corrupt, employ expatriates in strategic positions. We can’t go on like this.
Deja Vu – Having Police stood at Roadblocks all day is wate of manpower…the only way to sort out this is by having speed delimiters fitted on all PSV, there is no reason why a PSV should be doing more than 100 km/hr.
#1 Muna Dekhane…I am having a discussion with RTSA officer. He talks about the corruption in the Lungu adminstration. He talks about the corrupt Zindaba. We are about to part company then one of us complains about the congestion at the RTSA offices. His driving license has expired. The RTSA officer tells him to ” see me on Monday…. call me before you start off” You understand what I am driving at?
In this day and age there should not be queues at RTSA if renewals were done online and then collected from offices or sent out!!
#3 Tarino Orange… what you are saying is alright and I am sure there’s a law already in force concerning retarders. Whether this is enforced I wouldn’t know. Just like traveling at night is banned, but people have continued to travel deep in the night. Nobody is ready to enforce I suppose. Yes road blocks are not ideal but if our police were serious they would be patrolling our roads with vehicles fitted with speed reading equipment. Laws are there, but nobody is interested.
Everytime we travel on Zambian intercity highways at night we put our lives in the driver of the oncoming vehicle you have too trust that s/he isnt drunk or doing 180 km/hr…given the money that has been wasted over the years these roads should have been separated.
This is just to much, the problem I see here if not many is that some of this drivers are given driving licenses without even been tested to drive certain vehicles we need stiff penalties we can’t just turn a blind eye on this issues we are talking about losing human lives here, it seems like RTSA and other stakeholders don’t care about these fatal accidents that are happening every single day in the country! The question is, where is the money the RTSA are collecting going? of which some of this money can be used to improve the standards of some of this road safety, by installing Road signage, things like speed limits in some of the busiest roads, Cars overtaking issues etc and also double-checking of foreign drivers to ensure that they have valid driving licenses and obeying our…
…..driver lost control after hitting a pothole…. Fix the roads please . While we are waiting for new roads it doesn’t take a lot just to fill potholes on all major highways by whoever is responsible.
I thought the writer says after investigations it was Established that the driver hit a Pot hole resulting into the accident. But then it all goes like the time of driver 29 minutes after the dead line of 22:00hr was the cause of the accident. And is far as I understand the said Instrument law the driver can drive to the nearest town or safe place if the stop time finds them in an insecure place and that is stated.
So the cause of the Accident is the Pothole and whoever is responsible for maintaining the roads must be held accountable and separately deal with driver if he broke the law on time of driving.
So theAccident cause was the Pot Hole not the Time he drove
STOP THE LUNCH MONEY CUILTURE THATS ALL
ACCIDENTS WILL ALWAYS BE THERE
LOOK AT THE VOLUME OF TRAFFIC ON OUR ROADS AND YOU WILL SEE OUR ACCIDENT IS NOT THAT HIGH
More upnd sacrifices and here you are saying rtsa rtsa fyo fyo
THIS CHAP OBOVE TALKS A LOAD OF CR*APE
SURELY WE ALL SICK OF HIS COMMENTS NOW
Tikki aka tarino fuseke
Was Kaizar Zulu hurt or killed in this accident?
Kaizar Zulu who ever he is should be banned to comment!!He is a disgrace to Zambia….
Here problem is with the road. Let’s not blaming the driver. That road is bad am telling you. Those driver’s who use that road I can evn give them a merit. About the time it was 29 past wat can we say. Obviously he wanted to sleep at Mukando. He can’t sleep pa panga.