26 Mar 2024

Road traffic crushes, injuries and deaths are a complex rooted problem that demands a transition from a traditional sylod approach to a more integrated system approach in road safety management.
This was said recently, by Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund chief executive officer, Mr Michael Tlhagwane during MVA Fund stakeholder engagement meeting themed: "Shift Gears, Shift Mindsets: Stakeholder Collaboration for Safer Mobility."
"This is the mindset change that we need to embrace, as a road safety practitioner. We need to challenge our conventional road safety methods and engage in strategic and systematic thinking to find new ways that can work better for our country," he said.
The stakeholder engagement meeting was meant to provide a platform for stakeholders to exchange information and share ideas on how best to transform the country's road safety landscape.
For the country to achieve its economic transformation aspirations, Mr Tlhagwane said there was need for all important players and contributors to adopt a positive mind set shift towards road safety.
He expressed concern that, currently, the country's transport system robbed the nation of over 400 people, annually, with an estimated cost of around 2 to 3 per cent of gross domestic products.
"This is not acceptable, neither sustainable and cannot be business as usual," he added.
To address the situation, the MVA Fund CEO said there was need to come up with more robust practices, organisation and policies towards safe mobility to reduce the socio-economic burden that the road traffic crushes place on the nation.
Mitigating this socio-economic risk, Mr Tlhagwane said would help support government's initiatives for economic transformation.
In her opening remarks, Department of Roads, Transport and Safety director, Ms Masego Gertz expressed concern that a small group of road users were at higher risk of being involved in serious road traffic crushed, due to dangerous behavioral choices they made, such as speeding, drunken driving, using mobile phones while driving, failing to wear seat belt and driving without licenses.
"If we are to choose change in our behavioral, as road users, then everything will fall into play, which means all of us need to mind and be our brother’s keeper," she said.
Ms Gertz, therefore, appealed to all road users to go into the road with sober minds and determined to save lives.
Road safety, she said was fundamentally about human behavior, 'hence the decisions we make as drivers, pedestrians and passengers have a profound impact on the safety of our roads.'
"It is imperative that we adopt a behavioral change that places safety at the forefront of our minds to reduce the alarming statistics associated with road accidents," added Ms Gertz.
Sharing the country's 2023 Road Traffic Accidents Situation, Botswana Police Services senior assistant commissioner and Director of Traffic Division, Mr Pilane Sebigi revealed that in 2021 police recorded 413 road accidents deaths out of 17 277 road traffic crushes.
In 2022, he said 404 deaths out of 16 404 crushes were recorded, whilst in 2023 396 deaths out of 15 331 crushes were recorded. BOPA