Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Carnage on Zambian Roads : What could be the Solutions?

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The accident scene of the Zambia/Malawi Lusaka bound bus which collided with at Nyimba

By Dr. Charles Ngoma

Many years ago, I had the misfortune of being involved in a road traffic incident on the notorious ‘manenekela‘ just around Luangwa bridge on the not so ‘great’ East road! It took us 5 hours to get to an institution with a semblance of a hospital, really on a wing and a prayer with God’s good grace expressed through the kindness of passers by who offered lifts from one section of the trip to another, as long as we paid them something for fuel, although they were making the trip in that direction anyway!
The recent disaster on the Nyimba section of the GER is not the first and will not be the last. As one travels on this treacherous thoroughfare from Lusaka to Chipata, the road is litered with hundreds of motor vehicle carcasses throughout. Road traffic accidents in Zambia have just become far too common and are too high per capita of the population. This problem must be addressed with utmost urgency by the incoming government because road fatalities are depriving the nation of highly valuable human resources.

There are two main causes of these avoidable accidents.

1. The appalling state of the road infrastructure.

The Patriotic Front leader Mr Sata, has had the advantage of travelling up and down the country mainly by road rather than by air compared to the President and ministers. He has seen for himself how terrible Zambian roads are and this is not a new thing because it has been the case since Torno and ZECCO left the scene many moons ago! The funny thing is that as soon as people are elected to power, they forget about these problems as they fly 10,000 feet above the ground and every piece of the country looks ‘pretty’ from the air!
Who is responsible for this and who is to blame? Well, the country is parcelled into constituencies and each constituency has an elected representative at the Manda Hill where the national treasury is cut up for various expenses. Don’t the elected MPs know about these problems? Then, there are councils which are responsible for the roads within their district jurisdiction. All have elected representatives who drive or walk or cycle on the same roads day by day. Why is it so hard to bring these problems to the attention of government? If it is impossible, it means that we are electing the wrong people into power and we must get rid of this dead wood!
We also have the National Roads institution which should look after the inter city portions of these roads, the motorways and trunk roads.
This pathetic state of our roads is not just in relation to the road surface but warning sign posting as well. The only time one sees a road sign in Zambia is on paper during driving lessons and driving licence testing! You better memorise these signs because you will never see them again on the roads! The portion of the not great east pathway I referred to for my accident had a pool of spilled oil on it and there was no barrier on the edge to prevent one from bungie jumping but without the bunge!

2. Just Driver error and Carelessness.

It should be law to restrict public passenger service drivers to trips not longer than 4 hours to allow for rest. Bus owners are raking billions of Kwacha every year by pushing their drivers to run errands too many. The high ways have no rest facilities and service stations! There is very little one can do to prevent personal stupidity but if passengers do not complain about recklessness on the part the driver conveying them, then they should not complain if he sends them to an early death.

What can we do about this?

Managing roads is expensive business. Turning GER into a dual carriage way as Mr Sata is promising is not the answer to this. In fact it will increase road deaths because the Ndola-Kitwe road ihas seen fatalities too, and the late Nkumbula being one victim.
There are cheaper ways and means of helping reduce the carnage.

1. Re introduce the regular highway patrols. I am reminded of the Elisha Banda led team of ‘cow boys’ in the early 70s. The idea was good but premature. We need that now. If we had one patrol for each 100 kms it would help to keep drivers under check.

2. Improve warning sign posting and let these be dealt with by the local civic administration.

3. Travel and medical insurance to be included in the ticketing price. The proprietor of the bus company must also be made to contribute towards medical bills and compensation of the victims. This will make them to be careful the way they convey people and prevent over loading and ‘doba doba’.

4. Invest in rail networks. Rail travel is safer and even better for the environment. If we had adequate rail networks, it would take off the heavy cargo transport off the roads and thus giving them a longer lease of life and less cost in maintenance. The extension of the Chipata Muchinji rail to Mpika is welcome, but all other Provincial headquarters must be joined by rail to Lusaka. I would suggest more investment into the rail system to modernise and expand capacity than a dual carriage way to Chipata from Lusaka. What about Mongu to Lusaka. Kasama to Kapiri mposhi, Ndola to Lusaka? I doubt whether Zambia has enough money to do this at the present time.

5. Vehicle fitness. The law must be strengthened here. There are too many unfit vehicles on Zambia’s roads.

6. Sensitising drivers to good driving. So many Zambians are still driving while under the influence of alcohol. Road side breatherlisers at check points may help. Naming and shaming bad drivers publicly would also help.

This is something that must be looked into as a matter of urgency. We cannot afford preventable loss of life.
God bless the Republic of Zambia.

33 COMMENTS

  1. 1. Introduce speed limits
    2. Introduce speed cameras
    3.Introduce better and clear signs on dodgy roads
    4. Expand busy roads
    5. Introduce better licensing policy
    6. Be strict on Drink driving
    7. Road Markings should be standard on all roads

    A combination of the above solutions, while to the answer to all traffic problems, will help reduce accidents in Zambia.

    • Add:
      8. Severe penalties for offenders.
      9. Increase patrols and check for over-speeding, wrecks and careless drivers.
      10. Breathalyzer at every possible opportunity for alcoholics.
      11. De-register operators who disregard regulations!

  2. You only talk after people’s lives have been lost. Where were you all along with such seemingly good suggestions?!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. Every good public policy and investment is never cheap. Railways, Highways, bridges, airports, health care, education, etc, are all very expensive undertakings. But that is exactly what governments are for! As a result, we as citizens have agreed to a collective financing scheme (taxes) to pay for these things.

    We cannot, as a nation, continue accepting the notion that these things are expensive and therefor we should just accept our miserable existence as a people.

    If Zambia can not fix even half of her problems now when copper prices are sky high, I don’t see us changing our sorry infrastructure situation, ever! So, until we get leaders who are selfless and serious about our collective destiny as a nation, Zambia will continue lagging behind. No amount of road signage will do.

  4. I am glad that atlast an article like this one is in the news. We also need to have more reports on road accidents and their causes so that drivers may be sensitised as to what causes most accidents. I personally find that most fatal accidents happen during over taking. RTSA must be more proactive in this regard. Also stiffer penalties for offenders would greatly help.

  5. Good that someone has thought about bringing his issue where we can all same something if any. There is a ministry with the responsibility of transport in this country. What are they doing about this situation which is totally unacceptable? Maybe someone can tell me what Ministers do in these ministries, I am totally at loss. Even painting of the road to clearly show the left and right sides is an issue for us in Zambia. What really is our problem? ATTITUDE?!!? I have seen some small sign on speed limit (80) along the Kitwe/Chingola road (between Garnatone and Chingola Cemetry). hardly visible to motorists who need the proper concentration on this road. Really sad!!!

  6. we need to be more responsible with other pipoz lives …we can not blame the gvt even for our own short comings..lets be serious about how we run our businesses and take care of our customers please

  7. The greatness of a nation is measured by how it looks after it’s people.

    A life is a life rich or poor. Will this be the last accident on this road? No.

    Have we learnt anything from this? No. Development is expensive unfortunately.

  8. Before the government constructs a dual carriage way between Lusaka and Chipata, they need in the meantime to police the stretch between Lusaka and Chipata. Zambia needs intelligent policemen adequately funded and equipped to stop and search an public transport in this stretch or indeed any other. It should not matter whose buses are breaking the law, they must be stopped and journeys curtailed if necessary. Bus drivers must know that they can’t smoke carnabis or drink before driving. Bus operators must not employ people without any reasoning skills and this is the problem in Zambia as this industry is exclusively for people who falied to make a grade at school. Zambia is at war with drunken drivers.

  9. Guys, we have some of the best engineers in Africa, we also have some of the biggest mines on the continent are you telling me that we are not capable to building roads? Our transport system has improved significantly and so should our road network. We need to urgently liberalise our high way agency so we can get people who know how to buld roads build them. GRZ please consult with the Italians on how they managed to build one of the most extensive road netwoks in Europe via Toll system. After all that’s what real investment is all about. We have consulted with our South African friends on how to build nice shopping malls so why can’t we do the same with the roads?

  10. You forgot breath analyzers. Station a few of these on the roads on Friday and Saturday nights so the the drunks get to spend a night in lock-up on their way home from the club and I bet a large part of the problem would go away!

  11. If you look at the scene of the accident, It’s clear that this accident could have been avoided by just expanding the road and making it a dual carriageway. Our government would rather spend money on printing papers abroad rather invest in real infrastructure. If we borrowed $2 billion to clean up the mess on our roads and a sitting government explained this with tangible infrastructer evidence, I can’t see how one could oppose such a project. Politics aside bane, ni chalo chesu! we have to build the country ourselves.

  12. @3 Yambayamba
    You are right about the duties of government, but the situation in Zambia is not favourable financially to do everything that needs to be done. Mathematically speaking, if you double the working population of a city the earnings of each worker doing exactly the same job to that in another smaller city rises by 15%. Extrapolating this to the country means that for Zambia to really benefit from its economic activities, the working population that pays tax MUST double. Taxes are not enough to pay for infrastructure maintenance AND development. Luangwa bridge was built by the British in 1968 as a temporary suspension bridge, now we are thinking of dual carriage! Dream on!

  13. It may help to bring in private investors to build roads and bridges and collect tolls. It works very well in the west.

  14. THERE IS TOTAL INDISCIPLINE ON THE ROADS,EVEN PEDESTRIANS THINK THAT THEY ARE MADE OF METAL,THEY WOULD RATHER RUN FROM RAINS THAN FROM A MOVING VEHICLE..IT IS NOT THE POLICE NOR RATSA TO BLAME ,ITS US ,OUR ATTITUDES,OUR BAD DRIVING,OUR CARELESSNESS.HOW CAN A NORMAL PERSON ACCEPT TO BE AN OVERLOAD ON PUBLIC VEHICLE?
    I HAVE FLIPPED BEFORE AND THANK GOD AM HERE,IF I HAD BEEN MORE CAREFUL NONE WUD HAVE HAPPENED,AT LEAST AM WISER NOW,75% DRIVER ERROR

  15. #1 you are very right. Also increase police patrols, tighten the law on road-traffic breakers and Police salaries to motivate them. Policemen should live in the camps, the way it used to be in Kaunda era, not among community. This increases discipline and reduces corruption

  16. When Banda is here in SA ,HE USES ROADS,BACK HOME he cant ,he is ashamed and scared od potholes ,Change the governmemt.These pipo are blind ,they can see but think every zambian is stupid

  17. I totally agree with Dr. Ngoma. Even the so called response to RTA is pathetic. My kids got involved in a road accident along Kafue road and were taken to Kafue hospital. It took more than 5 hrs to transfer the victims to UTH and by the time the Doctors at UTH tried to attend to them one of them died coz he had lost alot of blood. Imagine in this modern era no blood transfusion was done as first response. It makes one wonder if at we have well trained and equipped paramedics and rapid responses medical services.

  18. The only way round this is by having a dedicated Highways Agency with exclusive jurisdictions to Inter-City Roads like GER, GNR etc, they would deal with everything from Grading, Road Signs, Marking, identifying potential black spots, tender works and monitoring of sub-contractors road works. To eliminate shoddy works, promote transparency and eliminate corruption. Same with the police have a dedicated Intercity Highway Police Patrol which deals with only highway matters with extensive arresting powers and highly trained select group of officers delinked from the regional Police forces. 

  19. now this is what we need in Zambia calling a spade a spade not a big spoon. How can someone who fly know the situation of the roads? moreover MPs reside in Lusaka what a shame!!! Cry my beloved Zambia.

  20. The other problem is these leaders of today are quick at asking for monetary assistance but very reluctant at asking for technical assistance; if you don’t ask you wont get….talk to the British or the Germans or the Italians they have been building roads or thousand of years in most terrain than those small hills in Nyimba…just throw-in a Wildlife Safari Package and accommodation, their governments will provide you with assistance for free.  

  21. The other problem is these leaders of today are quick at asking for monetary assistance but very reluctant at asking for technical assistance; if you don’t ask you wont get….talk to the British or the Germans or the Italians they have been building roads for thousands of years in worst terrain than those small hills in Nyimba…just throw-in a Wildlife Safari Package and accommodation, their governments will provide you with assistance for free. 

  22. I agree with many of these suggestions, but I stress that bus drivers sometimes receive more of the blame than is fair. For one thing, I have seen far fewer bus drivers drinking and driving than I have drivers of personal cars. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen or gotten a ride with someone who was drinking castles and mosi on the road…and this includes a police officer and two men who work for parliament. Also, there need to be more restrictions on bus and truck owners limiting the number of hours drivers can work. Those chaps are under pressure to bring in money, so who can blame them if they don’t rest enough between driving? It’s the owner’s responsibility. Finally, drivers don’t need to complete grade 12 to drive; they need a driving course and good instincts.

  23. In the US in order to ensure they can only drive 10hrs per day there are weigh stations which double as places to log their driving hours reducing the likelihood of fatigue.You also see unmanned electronic police radars indicating your speed so it forces you to slow down.In the UAE they use electronic chips embedded in the road which records your speed and takes photos of your vehicle as evidence so you can never deny.These are expensive solutions but no solution comes cheap though they’re cheaper compared to loss of lives.

  24. It is sad that people have to die for us to discuss problems. What happened to the words “foresight”, “leaders”, “safety regulations”, and “road reconstruction’? Recently Hon Shikapwasha said that our economy is doing great, and he, in his own words, said you can see that by how many people own vehicle. Now using very simple economic theory of demand and supply, I believe Mr Shikapwasha should have also discussed how many new roads have been paved and created to absorb the demand.

    The question asked by the author is, What is the solution? Without sounding political, let us look at the construction of the two fly overs in Lusaka. Sata as Governor saw how traffic was being stopped by trains and the danger thereof, he constructed the bridges. Solution, right in front of you.

  25. I ve read you inspiring article ba Dr. Ngoma. I strongly feel that you should have also discussed corruption in the final part of your article “what can be done” as one of the vices which has significantly contributed to high fatalities on our roads. Quite often, drivers and other crew members have been in a habit of bribing Police Officers on duty to allow them proceed with overloaded buses. Members of the Public should be discouraged from boarding overloaded buses fr their own safety. Lastly, the country should improve on the status of the road network to minimize fatal accidents.

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