The Zambian Roads & Highway Safety Group (ZRHSG) is urging the Traffic officers to allow highway traffic on Zambia’s busy highways like the Great North Road to flow smoothly.
The Highway Safety Group is dismayed to receive reports of many traffic jams and long distance drivers spending more time on major trunk roads as a result of many road blocks and spot checks by the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) officers since Monday this week
What motorists would like to see on the highways are officers from the Road Development Agency (RDA) identifying and mending damaged sections of the road and expanding congested sections of the road to create overtaking lanes so that slow moving traffic can give way to faster moving vehicles.
The Highway Safety Group’s monitors this week spotted 7 RTSA snap check points between Lusaka and Chisamba turn off on the Great North Rd, implying a stoppage of moving traffic every 10kms, which resulted in high speed highway traffic being forced to move at snail pace and in close proximity to one another known as known as bumper to bumper.
The Highway Safety Group has always been concerned by the increasing number of accidents being recorded in Zambia and especially on the dilapidated sections of the Great North Road between Chisamba and Ndola.
The Highway Safety Group has always advised that the current state of the Great North Road between Chisamba and Ndola because of its bad state is not fit for a busy highway and is a danger to the travelling public both local and international. Most accidents have occurred along this bad stretch of road.
The Highway Safety Group has also identified slow moving vehicles and police road blocks on the highways that create long queues of highway traffic as another catalyst for over speeding and accidents on these roads. The other cause of highway traffic congestions and panic driving on Zambian roads are the low speed limits of between 40km/hr and 60 km/hr on most highways that further delay traffic.
The Highway Safety Group is therefore urging RTSA to find a much intelligent way of reducing road traffic accidents on our roads and curb lawlessness.
The High Safety Group also urges the Ministry of Transport to spur RDA into action and take advantage of the available resources from toll gates and mend the highways.
The Highways are an important nerve centre of the economy and motorist found on the highway are not there to play but to ensure that goods and services are delivered on time. Most of these drivers usually have long hours of driving ahead of them and therefore require a road atmosphere that allows for easy planning and execution of their duties on these roads for them to safety complete their journeys and transport passengers, goods and services.
Those motorists that ply their trade on these highways also have specific hours they are required to drive between point A and point B and also need to comply with the labour laws of how many hours a day they can safely work as drivers on the highway.
The Highway Safety Group is hopeful that RTSA will pull off their officers and return them to their offices to think through long lasting solutions to effectively make the Zambian Highways a pleasure to drive on safely and on time.
The Highway Safety Group notes that Zambians spend a lot of time on the roads as a result of road blockages and slow driving and hopes the presence of the traffic policers and their professional recommendations would help both RTSA and RDA to upgrade the standards of the highways so cars can safely and efficiently travel from one point to the other.
The Highway Safety Group looks forward to motorised patrols and less disruption of highway moving traffic.
Mthoniswa Banda
Group Admin – Zambia Roads & Highway Safety Group (ZRHSG)
