The Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST) has attributed the escalating road traffic accidents and injuries to the unprecedented high levels and rates of motorization in the country.
Trust Chairman Daniel Mwamba said this in a statement released to ZANIS in Lusaka today.
Mr Mwamba charged that Zambia ranks high on the global rate of deaths and injuries resulting from road traffic accidents.
He said over 2,000 fatalities in road accidents are recorded annually and that the situation had degenerated into a public health crisis.
Mr Mwamba said his organization would embark on a road safety campaign aimed at improving child road safety in the country.
He said his organization will work in partnership with PUMA Energy Foundation and the International road safety NGO – Amend to implement the road safety programme to change unsafe behaviours on the roads in order to protect school going children from road traffic injury.
The Road Safety Trust will on Friday October 31, 2014 launch a child road safety programme at New Kanyama Primary School in Lusaka before being rolled out countrywide.
Mr Mwamba said the Road Safety Trust believes that the project will save lives and protect young children who are at great risk of road traffic injury.
And PUMA Energy Foundation Executive Director Vincent Faber expressed optimism that the partnership between the Zambia Road Safety Trust and Amend will help in educating Zambian children on the dangers of the road .
Mr Faber hoped that safety messages would be prioritized in the implementation of vital road safety activities across the country in order to foster road safety.
What do you expect when you have blood thirsty people like HH? He is sacrificing people’s blood for his political career.
That’s the problem with deluded Africans who think everything is spiritual. Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you’re driving your car with over-pressured tires or under-pressured tires, chances are you might cause an accident. If you are driving at high speeds, you are more likely to get into an accident regardless of how much you prayed before the journey. Just because God exists does not mean you have to be careless. Of course witchcraft has it’s place in some misfortunes, but some things are just basic science. “The spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual” 1 Corinthians 15:46.
what do u expect when the village headman’s life depends on his people’s blood? very soon we will hear that he is now fine and jogging in london
We just dont care about the safety of our roads until our lives or those of our loved ones have been affected.
enforcement is none existent and corruption are rife by the law enforcement agencies. not to mention the drivers training, testing and licensing.
We have had the same road network since independence and developing new ones or maintain and improve the existing ones has become a fallacy.
we are a nation that want the best but are not willing to work to attain that.
we are simply happy with the crumbs that politicians throw at us. We are indeed useful id!ots
I think LT should close down services to Canada. The comments coming from there are insults to native Canadians. See above.. honestly people.
We don’t miss any comments from India, China or Syria.
It won’t hurt to just plug-off the cable from Canada.
This is nonsense. SA records over 200,000 deaths during festival seasons alone, it beats me how Zambia could possibly be high with such figures???
By all accounts, the 200,000 deaths is deaths due to unnatural causes, of which some sources say road accidents account for 25% of that figure. Also, the urgency of the matter ought not to be dismissed just because of South Africa’s figures. It is inaccurate to compare the two figures without taking into account the population and the driving population of the two countries. In order to do so, we have to examine figures Per Capita. For instance, Zambia’s road traffic fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles in a year was at about 900, while South Africa was at about 150. But because Zambia has less overall drivers, South Africa had a higher fatality rate in total. So we have to examine why we have 900 fatalities per 100,000 vehicles, and not just dismiss the fact based on misunderstood…
@Lamfras, where did you read that its ranking #1 in World or Africa?
Those statistics are from Zambia only by ZRST, therefore Zambia is the highest in Zambia.
It’s a shame to talk about the highway system and road conditions after 50 years of independence. Pretty sure we can get some citizens who have studied logistics, operations research, system engineering, architectural engineering, or similar fields to design a highway system that reduces traffic congestion (e.g Exit routes) and reduces the probability of accidents occurring. Also, I do not quite get the infatuation in Zambia with tubed tires. Many reported accidents are due to a tire burst. It is elementary physics that in the case of a tire burst, you chances of survival are beyond superior with tubeless tires as opposed to tubed tires. Lastly, what is ZRST doing to curb drunk driving? Uncle Joe goes to the bar, has a little too much with his friends, and at the end, he drives them home.
Boza .That figure(2000) is the average death toll on S Africa roads during festival season. So how does Zambia beat that record?
what more with licences for sale. thats why a with a zambian licence in the UK you have to be retested. they should ban testing on automatic unless youre are disabled. also the number of motor vehicles on SA roads is far too many than in zambia so maybe proportional wise this could be true but they should have been explicity then.
The problem people get licence before the learn how to drive and too many second hand cars which are not road worth in the countries we buy them. Government need strict controls over the issue of licence. We need to introduce proper training before licence is issued.
The reasoning by ZRST and RATSA are very faulty, displaying how inept and dull these organizations have been. Tanzania, Kenya have more cars on the roads but not this scandalous level of accidents. Simply put, ZRST and RATSA are not being forceful and proactive. The Two bodies should stop putting blame on the totally unrelated reasons but take responsibility and become efficient. RATSA has no vigorous public campaigns, it makes little effort to correct faulty road landscape and it cares less abt proper Road Signage. And due to corruption, enforcement of traffic laws is at 0%. These are some of the causes of this health crisis not the high number of motors. If ths were the case, reducing no. of cars would solve the problem but that is not rational. Pls ZRST think and act right.
@Nostradmus. kikiki, thats something. zambia is highest in zambia
Give me one good reason why Zambia should not rank high? How many genuinely qualified drivers are on the road today? What do you expect from a 300 – 800km busy single lane highway between cities 50 years of independence? How do you expect the country to be road safe when even some of the traffic officers have no idea of what driving is? How do you expect accident free record when dogs are also driving along side reasonable, competent and experienced motorists? Is not the saying the blind cannot lead another blind enough for you to see the mushrooming of driving schools and fake instructors? Go on dreaming while more lives are lost.
Forget prayer, forget bad drivers. Solution to all this is no more single lanes. Build highways and the accident rate will go down. Hold your govt accountable.
The challenge we have on our Zambian roads have to do with attitude, most untrained operators who call themselves drivers are more in number than the trained drivers. The mushrooming of sidle driving schools and taxi drivers participating in driver training puts our country on the sport. coming to the agency politicians have to be realistic in the way they say thank you to their cadders. sensitive organisation like rtsa has no room for political pay out, here we need professionals, the accidents we are witnessing on our roads have nothing to do with which part one belongs too.
some rtsa staff are doing much damage than good and the best the agency can do is also come up with a training school for its members which can also help private instructors.