The Sunday Mail
Forty-three more lives were needlessly lost on the country’s roads last week.
A state of disaster was duly declared as the nation united in mourning, led from the front by the country’s First Citizen.
The carnage along the Harare-Chirundu Highway came barely two months after a similar disaster along another major thoroughfare — the Harare-Beitbridge Highway — accounted for over 30 deaths, again uniting the nation in anguish, mourning the departed.
Both accidents have left more questions than answers.
No one knows how long this bloodshed will continue before material action will finally be taken.
Road accidents, according to the Zimbabwe Traffic Safety Council, devour an average of 1 900 people annually.
Public service vehicles, for some, are now considered coffins on wheels.
Public transport operators are often blamed for setting unattainable targets for their crews, which push their fatigued employees to the limit.
Others blame “the bad state of our roads” and “black spots”, while for others, still, road travel is simply cursed.
But the damning statistic from the ZTSC attributing 90 percent of all road accidents to human error is spine-chilling.
This goes to show that the problems on our roads go beyond just the inadequacies of our infrastructure, operational transport processes or spirituality.
However unfortunate these accidents are, they offer us, as a nation, an opportunity to introspect; to open debate on this shared responsibility of ensuring a modicum of safety on our roads.
Road safety is not solely the responsibility of Government, police or other road management officials.
Every Zimbabwean should shoulder that responsibility, which is why it is important for us to come together to find a common solution to this problem.
I share Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa sentiment on the matter.
“That such a huge loss of precious lives comes soon after a spate of similar traffic accidents along our roads enjoins all stakeholders, principally public transport operators and other road users, to introspect on their scheduling decisions, and conduct and behaviours while in transit,” he said soon after the King Lion bus disaster.
“Whatever limitations there might be on our infrastructure, specifically on the state of our roads, clearly these limitations by themselves need not pre-ordain a tragic fate on innocent and trusting commuters.”
It is comforting that the general citizenry is prepared to introspect and confront road carnage.
What is now required, in my view, is sustaining debate around the subject until we get material solutions.
History shows how we, as a nation, are quick to unite in emotion when road disasters strike, only to return to our normal lives a few days later as if nothing ever happened.
Let’s settle this road carnage menace once and for all.
Think about those who lost their loved ones; breadwinners in that tragedy.
None of the 43 wanted to die. In fact, none of us likes death. The outpouring of grief from across the country shows just how much we value life, even the life of a person we didn’t know.
We can demonstrate that humanism better by dealing with road carnage.
