Police launch 60-day drive to halt road carnage

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Thursday November 18, 2010 00:00

 

Speaking at a press briefing at the Police Headquarters in Gaborone yesterday, Police Commissioner Thebeyame Tsimako said the rate of road accidents in the country has been in a state of flux over the years.

He explained that the general trend shows an increase in terms of absolute figures although indices show signs of mild improvements, with about 332 deaths registered this year, compared to 475 at this time last year.

'The last time we registered 338 deaths on the roads was in 1996, which was small because road users were not as many as now. We do not want to have more than 400 deaths any more,' Tsimako said.

He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) Global Status Report on road safety of 2009 ranked Botswana very low at 156 out of 178 countries surveyed in 2008 on the number of deaths on the road.

'Road accidents are now a public health issue and the WHO Global Status Report projected change in the ranking of the 15 leading causes of death and diseases worldwide, the 1990-2020 indicate that road accidents which were ranked ninth in 1990 will have ascended to third position of the leading causes of death and disease by 2020,' the police commissioner said.

Tsimako stated that the health burden arising from the crashes remains as high as the number of casualties has been constant over the past few years.

 He said causes of the accidents remain the known factors such as speeding, impaired driving, carelessness by road users, animals on the roads, and failure to obey traffic signs. 'On the casualty distribution side, young people continue to be over represented in the annual crash statistics. What remains therefore is for agencies dealing with road safety matters to find ways of working within the confines of the limited resources at our disposal to contain the problem at hand,' he said.

The police chief added that it is in this connection that the 60-Days-of-Action campaign aims at facilitating change in the mindset of the people. Tsimako revealed that BPS would for the next 60 days mount roadblocks at strategic locations targeting stolen goods, drugs, illegal immigrants and serious traffic violations. He revealed that there would be relay speed trap operations along the A1 every weekend.

He said BPS would also stage sobriety and saturation patrols in the major cities and towns, while the first major road-block operation will be followed by sporadic roadblocks in all the police districts managed from station levels.

Other targeted activities will include officers working normal hours being released once a week to join the patrol section to intensify stop, question and search operations, the objective being for people to account for their goods and controlling movement of students idle on the streets. 

Patrols will address theft of copper cables and vehicles carrying step-ladders will be stopped and asked to explain and account for such ladders. The BPS will further carry out raids on scrap metal yards, where copper wire is sold, and pawnshops. Business people have also been encouraged to conduct regular banking to avoid keeping large sums of money at their residences, making them targets or robbery.