EDITORIAL COMMENT: Don’t drink and drive this festive season

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It is that time of the year when workers join their families to enjoy Christmas and New Year festivities. Many of the workers will be travelling to their rural homes to be with their families and relatives. Zimbabweans working in neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Botswana and Namibia will also be returning home to join their families.

Affluent families will obviously be travelling to tourist destinations to enjoy with their loved ones. There is a lot of excitement as individuals look forward to meeting their loved ones after a long time. Those working in neighbouring countries usually return home once or twice a year while others are only able to come home after a couple of years hence the excitement.

The country’s borders such as Beitbridge, which is one of the busiest ports of entry in Sadc, are already witnessing an influx of travellers who are mostly Zimbabweans working in South Africa returning home for the holidays. Some companies closed for the holidays last Friday while others will be closing this week ahead of Unity Day and Christmas holidays.

It is our fervent hope that those that closed last Friday have already left for their destinations or will be doing so before Friday or Saturday. There has been a tendency over the years to wait until the Christmas Eve to travel. Those travelling with children should travel early to avoid jostling for seats in buses with workers.

Motorists should be servicing their cars ready to travel and should give themselves adequate time to travel to avoid speeding. It should not be left to police to ensure only roadworthy vehicles are on the road but it should be incumbent upon each and every motorist to ensure his or her vehicle is in sound condition. The safety of the travellers should always come first and what this entails is that only roadworthy buses and private cars should be allowed on the roads.

It is the responsibility of public transport operators to not only ensure their buses are roadworthy, but also that their drivers are not overworked.

Most of the bus accidents that occur during public holidays are caused by fatigue as the drivers are forced to make several trips because of the high demand for transport.

Transport operators should also avoid overloading buses as this puts the lives of passengers at risk. The Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development, Dr Joram Gumbo, has already warned public transport operators that they risk having their route authorities cancelled if their employees drive recklessly thereby causing accidents.

Dr Gumbo said Zimbabwe was committed to the United Nations declared Decade of Action for Road Safety which envisages a reduction of road traffic accidents by 50 percent by 2020. He said transport operators should desist from over-working their drivers resulting in fatigue, non- adherence to timetables and overloading of buses.

Individual motorists should avoid drinking and driving as this is another cause of many accidents. Statistics have shown that more than 80 percent of road traffic accidents in Zimbabwe are due to human error which means they can be avoided.

The police as usual have said they will be out in full force manning roadblocks on major highways to regulate traffic. We want to implore the police to ensure no motorist bribes his or her way through a roadblock.

Those who decide to drink and drive should be detained until they are sober to proceed. We have said it before that police cannot be on each  and every inch of the highway so passengers should ensure their drivers observe rules and regulations of the road. The passengers should not hesitate to report to the police any driver putting their lives at risk through reckless driving or speeding.

Let us all make this Christimas and New Year Holidays accident free.

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