This madness must be stopped! A woman looks in disbelief at the wreckage of cross-border Zupco bus which plunged into a dry riverbed, killing 13 people along the Harare-Nyamapanda Highway on Monday night. — (Picture by Justin Mutenda)
A woman looks in disbelief at the wreckage of cross-border Zupco bus which plunged into a dry riverbed, killing 13 people along the Harare-Nyamapanda Highway on Monday night. — (Picture by Justin Mutenda)

A woman looks in disbelief at the wreckage of cross-border Zupco bus which plunged into a dry riverbed, killing 13 people along the Harare-Nyamapanda Highway on Monday night. — (Picture by Justin Mutenda)

The Arena with Hildegarde
ROAD accidents: when is enough, enough? When will Zimbabwe as a nation stop and reflect on why the carnage on our roads should continue on a daily basis? 

Once again, Oliver Mtukudzi’s hit song “Mabasa” rings true, for we have become a nation where the angel of death seems to revel on striking travellers:

Tumirai mhere kuvakuru
Kuno kwaita mabasa!
Kwapfukudzika vakuruwe-e
Kwaita mabasa kuno!
Achachema mumwe ndiani?
Achabata maoko mumwe ndiani?
Iwe wafirwa, ini ndafirwa
Kwaita mabasa kuno!

Who will console the people robbed of their loved ones? Who will also compensate them? Why should people in their prime lose lives so needlessly?

Why have roads and cars cheapened lives, and why have the same roads and the vehicles that ply them become a source of fear with families and friends always feeling relieved when a traveller has arrived safely at their destination, irrespective of the distance travelled?

It is during such tragedies that the media industry sets aside their differences and concentrates on their core responsibility of informing the nation.

If the oneness demonstrated by the local media regarding this Monday’s Zupco bus crash was to permeate every fabric of society, wouldn’t this be a good starting point in resolving this problem?

Yesterday’s lead stories in The Herald, NewsDay, the Daily News and the Zimbabwe Mail were a sobering reminder that when we understand and appreciate our national interest, there is no room for polarisation.

The Herald had: “13 perish in horror crash”, while NewsDay led with “13 perish in horror accident” and, the Daily News had “13 perish in horror crash”. The Zimbabwe Mail had “13 die in Zupco bus crash”.

It was a question of semantics but all of them captured the key components of this tragedy.
Haulage trucks, buses, commuter omnibuses and private vehicles have become major killers on our roads.

Monday’s accident involving a Zupco bus travelling from Malawi to Harare, and a haulage truck heading to Nyamapanda border post occurred barely a week after 18 people perished along the Masvingo-Beitbridge Highway when a haulage truck and a commuter omnibus were involved in another deadly crash.

The two accidents that have already claimed 31 lives take place less than a fortnight after Chronicle Business Editor Mernat Mafirakurewa died in another horrific accident, and you ask yourself that when those whose responsibility was to tell the Zimbabwean story are also victims of this madness, who then will tell the Zimbabwean story?

For once, this Wednesday, it was as if all the media houses had colluded to come up with almost similar headlines.
Tragic though it was, it was refreshing to realise that the media can be an important vehicle that can be used to drive key national agendas, but not “horrific” agendas.

All of them have the same figure of deceased persons: 13. Three of them use the terms “perish” and “horror”.
Although the earthquake in South Africa was an important story because of the large number of Zimbabweans resident there, the Zimbabwean media realised the importance of telling this important Zimbabwean story, since pupils were travelling from boarding schools this week, and more people will be on the road during the Heroes and Defence Forces holiday next week.

Local dailies that led with the story

Local dailies that led with the story

While the media fulfils its mandate of informing and educating, the question we pose to the Government, legislators, the police, judiciary, health personnel and members of the public who drive are: why are these tragic accidents being allowed to be a permanent narrative?

What will it take to have zero-tolerance on traffic accidents? How many people must die and/or be maimed before decisive action is taken? How many children need to be orphaned before drastic action is taken in order to stop the carnage on our roads?

Police have mounted countless road blocks countrywide, but is it working?
Some drivers who have been found to be on the wrong side of the law have been sent to jail, but are the sentences that the courts give deterrent?
Are the existing laws people-oriented or they have loopholes that allow offending drivers to get away with murder?

Is it also time to declare radical action as is being done with rape, where some quarters are calling for the castration of rapists?
This writer says so because banning someone from driving for the rest of their life does not bring back the person(s) they would have killed.
Is the state of our roads a good enough excuse for the accidents that we hear about on a daily basis?

This almost felt like retelling or re-examining an issue that has been under scrutiny for years, but where a permanent solution is eluding all concerned parties, as if the nation is under a spell.

Globally, statistics on holiday accidents are recorded and the reasons for the high or low figures are also examined in order to improve the situation.

We have year-in, year-out statistics on road accidents. Are the figures used to rectify the problem? A few days before we celebrate the Heroes and Defence Forces holidays, the figure is already above 30. What does this mean? How will the current figure be used to stop more accidents?

There are schools of thought that argue that there are more traffic accidents during the Heroes Day period. They proffer obnoxious arguments, reasons that actually try to exonerate the offending drivers.

It is time to assume corporate responsibility for the reckless and lawless driving that is claiming more lives than deadly diseases.
If the relevant stakeholders had declared zero tolerance on the reckless driving we see on daily basis, these accidents would be history.

Until the national conscience realises that we lose more through inaction, then those people who have turned our roads into jungles will do as they please, and in the process kill and maim more people.

It’s time that we all stood up to be counted and tell every driver to: “#Stop killing our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, children on the roads”.

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