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Harare Bureau
Automobile experts want present law that compels all large buses to be fitted with speed limiting devices extended to other vehicles, and at least to the sort of vehicles used by pirate taxis.

The latest serious accident with 20 people killed after a Toyota Granvia burst a tyre and collided head-on with a Toyota Wish along Masvingo-Zvishavane Road would not have been prevented by such enforcement.

But while both vehicles are thought to have been carrying fare-paying passengers, neither was registered to do so and both were in any case under the 4,6 tonne vehicle mass. So an extension of the law would need to bring most vehicles into the ambit of the law if the objective was to prevent mushikashika speeding.

Statutory Instrument 129 of 2015 (64) (2) states that; “No person shall drive on any road a passenger public service vehicle or a heavy vehicle with a net mass of 4 600kg or more, unless one of the following speed monitoring or speed limiting devices is fitted to the vehicle (a) a tachograph (b) a tacho-log (c) vehicle data recorder (d) fleet manager (e) co-driver (f) any other speed monitoring or speed limiting device which the Minister, after consultation with the Standards Association of Zimbabwe may publish in the Gazette.”

Mr Tendai Mujuru, a speed limiter device expert with Sytech Africa told The Herald that extending and enforcing the law could reduce accidents by 60 percent.

“Just like in any society, human life and health is valued so highly there is a special obligation to use our scientific abilities to bring the problem of highway traffic safety under control. There is no doubt that the recent Masvingo disaster was due to speeding given the severity of the crash the injuries sustained by the victims and the fatality rate. Speed is a risk factor for road traffic deaths and injuries,” he said.

Mr Mujuru said scientific research had shown that 90 percent of road traffic crashes are a result of human error due to speeding.

He called on the Government to extend the Statutory Instrument to private vehicles saying nations that have implemented speed limiters have reduced the number of crashes and the severity of crashes upon occurrence thus reduced injuries and fatalities which is a major step towards zero death by 2050.

“The historic SI 129 of 2015 has seen some local bus operators Systech Africa speed limiters and now, Government should extend the SI to all vehicles and more to these Toyota Wish and Granvia vehicles which have become modern day kombis. Look, if we don’t do anything today about it like we did 20 years ago, 15 years , 10 years ago, 5 years, a year ago or a month ago we will still have the same higher statistics on the number of deaths now and forever on our roads,” he said.