This article was published in The Citizen Newspaper, Tanzania on 22nd August 2023.
For so long lives have been lost on our highways. No region or city in the country can be excluded from the scary statistics of this menace. This generality of the problem of road accidents should ring an alarm that there is a serious problem in our motoring all over the country. Sadly, these accidents keep happening even when they should not happen. The levels of negligence and carelessness are disturbing.
The questions I ask myself are, first, how do the owners of commercial vehicles feel when their buses claim people’s lives? Do they really feel sorry? Do they take any preventive or corrective action? Drivers race on the highways to please their bosses by attracting more customers who desire to arrive at their destinations early. As a country, there is a need to declare an ongoing national remedial process to curb road accidents and devise better ways to handle offenders.
Our cities and roads are getting a little bit busier in an age where the traffic rules all over the world have substantially advanced. We do not need to invent them; we just have to learn, remember, and keep them. It is a shame that in this age we still have reckless accidents, while the world has progressed far ahead of that to finding solutions to other more complicated problems.
I recommend that the government comes up with a facility or system by which all drivers will be assessed if they are physically and mentally fit, and emotionally stable for the task.
More careful tests should be conducted for long distance passenger drivers as well as goods transporters. There are deadly choices and risks that some drivers take which do not appeal to reason as reasoned thoughts of a fully functioning moral, rational, and intelligent human person.
Considering that several times trucks and buses collide with small cars, there is a need to oversee keenly the entire process of licensing all drivers. Perhaps limiting travel distances by licence age will help.
For instance, by introducing a law that newly licensed drivers will only be allowed to drive across regions after 3 years of acquiring a licence.
Similarly, drivers need to be actually tested if they can see clearly, drive properly, react appropriately, act wisely, estimate accurately, and identify hazards in good time as they drive. Drivers who learnt to drive automatic cars need to be licensed and examined if they can drive manual transmission cars too to ensure the safety of other road users and themselves, and the convenience of the travelling public.
There is a huge problem regarding the acquisition of driver’s licences in Tanzania. There are so many drivers who are licenced by paying some bribe to the overseeing officers.
These officers who allow people to acquire licences like that should feel ashamed and guilty for the many lives that bad and careless drivers endanger and claim every day. Also, drivers need to be medically examined for the use of drugs or addiction to alcohol as these are often causative drives.
Long distance buses
Longer journeys need more careful and more experienced drivers. But considering the many accidents that happen every other day, the maturity and carefulness of these drivers need to be rechecked. If the priority is to save lives, the government can assign police officers to travel with drivers who have been warned or companies that have a record of being involved in accidents.
It is high time we do away with fines and reward people with appropriate responsibilities resulting from their choices and actions. One who causes the death or permanent disability of another out of carelessness can be asked to support the family of the deceased or the casualty. In the event of repeated offences, some drivers should be imprisoned and permanently banned from driving.
With the ease of information systems today, the police force can organize police accompaniment of long distance buses, whether it is regionally or in zones. This will help to keep drivers in check. They can be helped by thoroughly trained and devoted civilians.
This is important because drivers have proved time without number that they cannot be trusted by the authorities and the general public. This might seem impractical, but it is a more practical way of handling road accidents as an actual emergency and reducing the number of deaths caused by the same.
I watched a video of one of the instructors at NIT who was shouting rudely at the learners, and yet he is regarded as the best instructor. Driver’s instruction should be informative, allowing the driver to learn as much as possible. When the learning is peaceful it gives the instructor chance to observe dangerous or even potentially deadly faults or habits a driver can develop from the time of learning. Instructors too need to up their game.
Heartfelt condolences to those who have lost their loved ones in road accidents. Whenever I hear people close to me are travelling I feel so much worried if they are going to arrive safely. We need proper intervention to bring this problem to an end.
