Road carnage dampening the festive mood

Mmegi Editor | Tuesday December 20, 2016 14:50

In the next few days, many will be travelling to home villages to spend the festive season with their relatives, some of whom they last saw 12 months ago.  

Christmas is time for families, and coming together with friends and family to reflect on the past year. It is time to look back and count on the successes, while also pondering on the challenges and failures.

During the past 12 months, some have lost and or have been through other tragedies of ill-health, retrenchments or folding up of businesses.

It is during the long end of year break, that many have to sit and set new goals for the coming year. These are called New Year resolutions.

However, the carnage on our roads continues to put a damper on the festive mood. Just this past weekend, one accident, of a commuter bus and a private sedan near Mahalapye claimed seven lives.

While investigations continue on the cause of the accident, even from an untrained eye, the accident has all the hallmarks of high speed driving and overtaking.

Of course, there are other unreported road accidents across the country that did not catch the attention of the media. This is a bad start for the festive season. We continue to ignore warnings against speeding and drunken driving.

We continue to overtake in dangerous zones, yet the police are ever present along our major highways. It is disappointing that despite all the aforementioned, innocent lives are lost on our roads because of careless motorists.

This year has seen a rise in fatal accidents, especially head-on collisions, something that is a clear indication that dangerous overtaking is always at play.

The police have tried very hard to patrol our roads, to a point that they were irritating, but the onus is on us to ensure our safety and that of other motorists. 

The police alone cannot win this war if we do not adopt a different mindset. All of us, individually, must take responsibility for safe driving and contribute to reducing road accidents.

The increase of vehicle population on our roads also calls for better roads, something that the authorities should give a priority.

A call to the authorities is to plan better. For instance, the A1 highway is the busiest in the country and therefore, some of its sections should be expanded into dual carriageway as a matter of urgency.

Today’s thought

'Drive Like Hell And You Will Be There'.