Human error largely to blame for road carnage

11 May, 2018 - 00:05 0 Views
Human error largely to blame for road carnage

eBusiness Weekly

The road has become the greatest loud silent killer of our time. It killed yesterday. It is killing today. It shall kill tomorrow unless we mount accelerated counteraction yesterday! What defeats common sense is that most of the road crashes are the result of human error.

In fact, 93,4 percent of all crashes recorded during the 2014/2015 festive period were a result of HUMAN ERROR (ZRP National Traffic Branch Report). Human error manifests in various ways involving all human traffic: push cart operators, rank marshals, vendors, passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, animal herders and drovers, horse riders and drivers.

Driver errors are clearly the major cause of road traffic crashes. It is against this background that the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe has adopted the road safety campaign theme: Eradicating Human Error in Road Traffic Collisions as a direct way of addressing the road traffic challenges posed by human error.

As indicated in the Zimbabwe Republic Police National Traffic Branch Annual Report (2014), a total of 37 619 road traffic crashes were recorded from January 2013 to December 2013 as compared to 41,016 from January 2014 to December 2014 reflecting a 9 percent increase in the number of road traffic collisions in Zimbabwe.

The report further reveals that a total of 1 787 people were killed from the fatal road traffic crashes recorded in the previous period as compared to 1 692 people killed during the current period. This translates to a 5 percent decrease in the number of people killed.

Nevertheless, this is unacceptably high. From the year 2009 to 2014, an average of 1,824 people died every year in Zimbabwe due to road traffic injuries. This means that about 5 people die every day on our roads in Zimbabwe and 38 others are injured daily. Road traffic injuries take an enormous toll on individuals and communities as well as on national economies.

Road traffic injuries and deaths have an immeasurable impact on the families affected, whose lives are often changed irrevocably by these tragedies, and on the communities in which these people lived and worked. Economically disadvantaged families are hardest hit by both direct medical costs and indirect costs such as lost wages that result from these injuries. At the national level, road traffic injuries result in considerable financial costs, particularly to developing economies like that of Zimbabwe. It should be underscored that road traffic injuries are largely preventable and that the evidence base for effective interventions is extensive.

This report is dedicated to expressing the road traffic crash statistical story in Zimbabwe. The primary source of these statistics is the ZRP National Traffic Branch.

We are in a Decade of Action for Road Safety. Therefore, in order to tame the traffic jungle, we must all play our part since we all use the road in one way or another. Everyone must evolve into a thinking road user.

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