Namibia’s crisis on the roads

Aggressive and enhanced law enforcement on Namibian roads is a crucial step needed to curb lethal driver attitudes which cost hundreds of lives and millions in taxpayer dollars annually.
“Effective policing is the most important requirement for improved road safety performance. We can have the best roads, the best rules of the road, the best regulatory environment, but if these are not properly policed and effectively enforced, like it or not, we will continue to have accidents and fatalities on our roads,” Eugene Tendekule, executive secretary of the Namibia Road Safety Council (NRSC), told Namibian Sun this week.
He said despite efforts by law-enforcement agencies and road-safety authorities “traffic policing is not at the level where one would have liked it to be”.
Year to date comparative statistics with 2015 show a noticeable reduction in crashes, the Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund said this week.
Crashes decreased by 5%, from 2 897 to 2 774 incidents recorded so far this year.
Fatalities dropped by 4%, with 482 killed by September 2015 compared to 268 this year.
Injuries fell by 6%, from 5110 to 4819, the MVA report shows.
“This means that in one way or another, road-safety campaigns are yielding results, although at a slow pace,” MVA spokesperson Kapena Tjombonde said.
Nevertheless, Tendekule explained that a study examining the effectiveness of awareness and education campaigns found “that road users are aware of what needs to be done, but the change of attitude and behaviour requires long-term sustainable efforts supported by effective law enforcement”.
He said as long as traffic violations and reckless driving remain undetected, drivers will continue to take risks and ignore traffic laws.
“The level of detection is low, which is compounded by the capacity of the courts to deal with voluminous traffic cases generated by the various law-enforcement agencies,” he said.
According to the MVA Fund, studies have proven that over 90% of crashes happen as a result of human behaviour.
According to the fund, Namibia is gradually moving towards adopting the safe system approach, a set of guiding principles that mark a shift from a sole focus on crash reduction to the elimination of death and serious injury.
The safe system approach builds upon the ground-breaking road safety efforts of the Netherlands and Sweden, and involves a holistic view of the road transport system, including users and planners.
An MVA analysis found that the top three types of crashes in Namibia are roll-overs (30%), collisions (28%) and pedestrian related (28%).
“Law enforcement is a very critical component in the road-safety space because it deters the deviant driver and forces them to behave in a certain manner,” Tjombonde commented.
According to Tendekule, many Namibian drivers have a reputation for “taking uncalculated risks” and as such there is a “lot of excitement on our roads.”
He added that people tend to be extremely impatient and are always in a hurry when driving, thus leading to higher travelling speeds.
He said many drivers justify their reckless behaviour because of the distances they have to travel.
For a number of consecutive years, MVA crash statistics found that the most vulnerable road users are aged between 15 and 35 years and are predominately male. Pedestrians and passengers are classified as high risk.
The fund has formed strategic partnerships with various road-safety authorities, as well as Unicef, to conduct road-safety audits and regular road-safety campaigns.
“Continuous public education will perpetually remind road users of road-safety tips,” Tjombonde explained.
According to a report on enhancing road safety, published by the Legal Assistance Centre (LAC), Namibia’s legal framework governing road safety is “relative to other African countries … reasonably comprehensive”.
However, the report, compiled by the Gender Research and Advocacy Project (GR&AP) of the LAC, found that the high fatality and accident rate calls for “innovation in the legislative framework alongside government action on education, strategic policies and more intensive law enforcement.”
Rachel Coomer, GR&AP public outreach manager, added that “we need more law enforcement of the current law and we should be considering some new strategic methods to keep our roads safe as well”.
While infrastructure, including more dual carriageways, is costly and a long-term strategy, there are “numerous options that can be implemented that can make a difference. One example is improving the quality of cars on our roads,” she said.
In addition, simple life-saving habits, such as using seatbelts and child restraints, “cannot be overstated.”
JANA-MARI SMITH