19 Nov 2018

The number of fatalities due to road accidents between January  and November  stands at 376 compared to 362 over the same period in 2017.

Speaking on the occasion of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Accident Victims in Maun recently, Vice President Slumber Tsogwane said it was worrisome that the 2018 figure was higher than last year’s despite measures being employed to address the situation.

Quoting a police report, he said  the casualties were attributable to factors such as driver negligence, loss of control, speeding, vehicle defect, tyre bursts and animals on the road.

Mr Tsogwane said roads communicated with users who failed to adhere to instructions given by warning and regulatory signs, road markings and other information.

He said most road users did not pay much attention to speed limits, safe crossing areas or pedestrian crossings.

Mr Tsogwane challenged the public to learn and appreciate that a road was a communicating environment or tool to facilitate the user such as the driver or pedestrian.

He underscored the need to continue joining hands to come up with strategies that would reduce road carnage.

The vice president encouraged all to take personal responsibility for their own lives and the lives of other road users and also to work as a collective to ensure that all obstacles to safe roads were removed.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications, Botswana Police Service, Motor Vehicle Accident Fund and other stakeholders were commended for effectively employing counter measures such as public awareness campaigns, joint law enforcement initiatives and engagement with different road users covering youth, religious community and children.

Mr Tsogwane noted that the ministry had developed a National Road Safety Strategy aimed at guiding and driving road safety programmes in order to stabilize and reduce road fatalities in the country in line with the United Nations Global Plan for Road Safety Decade of action for 2011-2020.

He appreciated the role played by district road safety committees in implementing the strategy noting that in places like Maun, the committee needed to hit the ground running as the district needed to be known for its tourism and not the scourge of accidents.

  “If the accidents and other maladies are not effectively addressed, they would result in the country regressing rather than progressing in development,” he said.

 Mr Tsogwane said the leadership was committed to working with the public  in pursuing the National Vision to bring the results that Botswana aspired to by 2036.

He  said there was need for all to  work in unison towards attaining the The aim of the decade of action was to reduce road accident fatalities by at least half by the year 2020, explained Mr Tsogwane.

“It is through gatherings like these that our government joins the rest of the world in drawing public attention to the misfortune on the roads.

Through these gatherings, we affirm the fact that our individual and collective responsibilities to making our roads safer is of paramount importance,” he said.

The vice president  said the gathering was an opportunity to interrogate the country's strategy in addressing  road safety issues.

He said the day’s theme, “Roads have stories”, addressed road users across all five pillars of the decade of action as announced by the United Nations general assembly in response to the rapidly rising number of road related injuries and fatalities occurring across the world.ENDS