Bus companies such as Euro-Africa Bus Services, Kobs Coach Services, CR Holdings, Power Tools, Mazhandu Family Bus Services and many others involved in passenger business should face heavy fines if they are involved in a road accident leading to loss of life or serious injuries.
A research by Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST) in the increased number of road accidents crashes in which hundreds of the bus passengers have been killed within a span of one year on Zambia’s roads concludes that bus companies simply put their profits before road safety.
The directors of bus companies are more concerned with their profits than passenger safety or public protection.
They should face heavy fines of hundreds of thousands of kwacha for their risking behaviour.
ZRST recommends that companies must be held legally liable even though are having no direct role in driving or operating a heavy vehicle.
In addition, corporate entities, directors, partners and managers should be accountable for the actions of people under their control.
This will make sure that everyone in the supply chain shares equal responsibility for ensuring road accidents do not occur.
Chairman for ZRST Daniel Mwamba said “Bus companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to prevent road accidents and mainly put the blame on their individual drivers or other circumstances. Swift action is taken to replace the bus back on the road, but a “laissez-faire” approach is adopted when it companies to instituting work place road safety measures.
“We recommend that the government consult on a system of escalating sanctions, to include meaningful fines of up to 1 million Kwacha for bus companies which fail to prevent road accidents and ultimately kill of injury innocent passengers. The fines extracted should be used to compensate the victims or families of victims.”
Road crashes in Zambia are now the second leading cause of death and the main risk facing health and activity individuals, both young and adults today, of which the government of the day needs to tackle head-on.
“Its high time passenger transporters come under robust scrutiny, face fines when they injury or kill innocent people,” he said.
Questions are – was the driver UPND?
Does this matter ?
Let me once again pass a word of caution /Wisdom and advise for this functioning Government.
You should stick to the knitting – what you know best. You should never allow this country to be undermined and go through what we went through this first half of the year.
It begins by the most obvious thing : to subtly disband UPND – and I called this first here.
Let the UPND go defunct and let us keep enjoying the peace we have always been accustomed to in the past.
It begins by continuing to prosecute its leaders with those two abominable acts of Treason, which are in my eyes indefensible.
Thanks
Bb2014,2016
I boarded a coach from Lusaka going to Kabwe recently. Before it left Intercity bus terminus a Rtsa officer came onboard and made an announcement where he said should the driver overspeed any passenger should call the Ratsa toll freeline 983, the officer also went on to caution the driver and conductors in the presence of passengers that if a report is received the driver would be arrested! As a result there was no overspeeding on that bus and the driver observed all traffic rules! The key is speaking to the drivers and passengers before departure! Let people know their right and we will have sanity on the roads!
A small travel insurance fee added to the bus fare could easily cater for the compensation of relatives of deceased passengers and survivors of our very dangerous roads.
Mushota even if you are being paid to blog irritating things; please have a little decency when it comes to lives of people and do blog with sense; stop politicising every issue;
There’s incredible foolishness in Zambia that leads to needless loss of life. The so called leaders know that corporations, or small companies almost always put profit before people’s safety. They don’t care what happens to who, as long as they make their hefty profits. It’s up to the government to clamp down on them and hold them accountable. And one way is to fine them heavily and allow the victims’ relatives to sue them for millions of kwachas. Also drivers driving commercial vehicles without proper commercial license should be arrested and prosecuted. And that includes commercial drives with corruptly obtained licenses. Arrest the people who issued the license corruptly and the driver too. Commercial vehicles should be thoroughly inspected and made sure they’re road worth…
The PF has brought a culture of “cheap Zambian lives”
So says a nobody.
Go and get a job or remain a destitute.
You will never earn the money my fiancé or I earn. The reason is simple you have beauty before your eyes and you decide to abstain from it.
Enjoy PF – no other party would do any better than PF
Thanks
BB2014,2016
Whats the name of this stinking person posting political things all the time? Does this person have a life. I am sure one of those badly brought up kids
Ignore it….it only wants a response to generate internet traffic with its name attached.
Responding to it only encourages it to wait 24/7 to blog.
You IGNORE.This person is showing classical signs of mental illness of schizophrenia. You trouble yourself commenting she/he urgent need of psychiatrist care.
The research is not correct Euro hasn’t had a fatal crash in more than ten years and that even then there were full compensation. Bad roads are contributing. Limiting policing to road blocks doesn’t help.RATSA should patrol and penalise badly packed vehicles and bad driving. While we wait for dual carriageway certain sections can be made dual particularly corners. Compulsory accident insurance cover for passengers would help.
You IGNORE.This person is showing classical signs of mental illness of schizophrenia. You trouble yourself commenting she/he urgent need of psychiatrist care.
The research is not correct Euro hasn’t had a fatal crash in more than ten years and that even then there were full compensation. Bad roads are contributing. Limiting policing to road blocks doesn’t help.RATSA should patrol and penalise badly packed vehicles and bad driving. While we wait for dual carriageway certain sections can be made dual particularly corners. Compulsory accident insurance cover for passengers would help.
Euro is never involved in accidents. Do your research, you will end up being blank in life like Mushota
Ignore it….it only wants a response to generate internet traffic with its name attached.
Responding to it only encourages it to wait 24/7 to blog.
We were still suppose to have UBZ and or Mulungushi traveller had it not been for HH selfish behaviour.
He privatized everything and allowed his tribesment to take over transport business – now look at the number of accidents?
Why doesn’t lungu officiate mazhandu bus by travelling on it without seat belt on. This would be Zambias biggest achievement
Thats because Zambian lives are worthless and Zambians are a docile people…up to now no speed limiters have been enforced. Why should a PSV be doing more than 120kph…if you dog deeper you will find that owners of these buses are linked to the Ruling party in some way.
President CANT DO THAT OFFICIATING MASHINDU BUS? HAVE SOME RESPECT TO ECL , JUST LIKE WE RESPECT HH BY KUMULONGA its due respect for him to appreciate what prison life is like before he can be a president in 2026
PF and UPND, Guiness world record team of worst time wasters. What has not gone in the Guiness book though is that unfortunately we don’t have alternatives
The problem we hav in Zambia is that we hav weak governance systems. Good policies but either poorly implemented or not all except serving the masters.
MUNYA MAFI. GOOD OBSERVATION BUT THE BIGGEST DISTASTER IS CORRUPTION. TUTWA GOES AND FIGHT FOR MAZHANDU BECAUSE HE DEPENDS ON IT FOR HIS BUS STOP IN KABWE.
Heavy fines will not stop accidents! High fines only enrich traffic officers who get culprits get away with bad behavior! It is not an end in itself! Waiting for an accident to happen first and then getting excited to fine is more of a reactive than proactive approach! First, we must understand that accidents will remain the major business risk for the transport industry. What we should be hearing are proactive safety measures to mitigate the risk. Issuing threats of heavy fines is the LAZY approach to such a serious matter because business owners have very little control over what the bus or truck operator does when they are out on the road. We should instead invest in PROACTIVE Safety Standards! All PSV drivers should undergo rigorous checks like we do for Pilots – Regular Medicals,…
competency training, Health & Safety and First Aid training, etc. A 24/7 customer hotline to RTSA to report any bad driving, invest in technology to remotely monitor and where possible remotely switch off buses that are overspending, Ensuring that all buses have functional safety devices and educating the public on the importance of using seat belts. A No Seatbelt No Ride to be strictly re-enforced and erring passengers to be charged including option of prosecution and imprisonment. All buses to have “How am I driving” at the back and a RTSA hotline for timely reporting! In a nutshell this requires a behavior change approach for driver, passenger and operator! It is not a secret that we as a country have a good share of bad drivers, slow drivers who clogg up traffic by driving slow in…
It is not a secret that we as a country have a good share of bad drivers, slow drivers who clogg up traffic by driving slow in the fast lane. We don’t hear of fines for such drivers like you get in SA! Courtesy for other road users is a nightmare on our roads. Selfish and greedy drivers are what you have. Behavior change is the answer. When the risk of punishment is slim, drivers will drive wild!
At Musukwa, I agree with you 100% vagabonds like NEZ and Mushota should be ignored,
A sane person can not be commenting on every subject posted on LT. It shows you are just an attention seeker, nothing but ilofwa, nothing to do.
We salute the proposal of hefty fines. Life should be valued
Mutinta i agree with you. UPND needs to be abolished without fail
Mushota, you are good analysts. i 100 percent agree with you