The Sunday News
Vincent Gono, Features Editor
TO err is human and to forgive is divine is a widely used aphorism that confirms that all human beings are prone to making mistakes.
However, due to the sacrosanctity of human life, mistakes that cost people’s lives or that seek to insensitively harm their emotions are hardly forgotten let alone forgiven and should always be avoided at all costs as they always leave a permanent dent on the affected people.
This is not always the case on the roads as the country continues to lose a lot of lives to road traffic accidents mostly due to human error with calls getting louder each day for a collective national approach to reduce road carnage.
Among the human errors that are responsible for causing a number of accidents is the use of cellphones while driving. The practise is unlawful, but the stubborn culture seems hard to let go among drivers. The use of technological devices like cellphones on the roads remains a great temptation among both motorists and pedestrians.
A number of pedestrians were either maimed or killed on the road by motor vehicles while plugging earphones and headphones and couldn’t hear the car hooting at them. Technological devices enhance the efficiency of communication and are often used for various other things that they are handy for such as recording audios and taking videos as well as pictures that can be distributed instantly but they have their own share of negatives when not handled with diligence.
A sad and worrying trend is slowly but boldly creeping into our once human faced society where people are getting carried away and resorting to taking pictures of people dying at an accident scene without helping them even if they can.
Pictures are often circulated of people writhing in pain, screaming and sprawled in the coagulation of their own blood consciously lost to the normality of the world while some will be mangled in the wreckages and under the heap of an assortment of luggage making normal people wonder where the person taking pictures will be.
Logic and a spirit of humanity will disallow one to take pictures in such a situation but to save lives and do everything to assist the accident victims.
But instead of priding themselves in being the first to assist, the techno savvy society prides itself with being the first with clear pictures and videos of the accident scene showing people who could have been assisted dying while helpers are busy with phones engaging in Kodak moments.
Such has been the case in Zimbabwe and the recent Rusape accident is one in a thousand cases. This is despite various warnings and awareness campaigns by the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) for people to be proactive in cases where accidents would have occurred.
TSCZ managing director Mr Obio Chinyere said in an interview that it was sad that people were taking pleasure in taking pictures and videos of people dying instead of assisting them.
“It is a worrying scenario that is quite inhuman where people get to an accident scene and start taking pictures and distributing them instead of assisting the victims who will be desperately needing the help. People are really abusing their communication gadgets. If one cannot help at least using the phone to inform those that can help such as the police or ambulance is not bad. Besides, circulating the images is not very ethical because it’s not morally proper for someone to hear or see the death of their loved ones on social media. We are going to engage the authorities and see how we can go about that very sad behaviour that is becoming a character of our society,” said Mr Chinyere.
He confirmed that human error was responsible for more than 94 percent of road accidents. He said they would engage as many stakeholders as possible in their fight against the rise in traffic accidents that have continued to decimate the country’s population.
“We would want to engage as many stakeholders as possible. The visibility of the stakeholders and their contribution, no matter how small, will go a long way in showing the commitment to solve the national problem that we are faced with. The Government is making efforts to improve the country’s road infrastructure and on our part we have been working with the police to raise awareness on safe driving with the objective of reducing human error and taming the traffic jungle,” he said.
Chief police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba has also been on record calling on drivers to avoid speeding, over loading, overtaking on curves and blind rises as well as avoiding using cellphones when driving.
She also spoke strongly about drinking and driving as part of the human error that confirms the lack of value for human life by drivers. She has incessantly called for the observance of road traffic regulations and signage.
The worrying accident trend continue to confirm that people are fragile, they die, their bones shatter, their flesh split and their hearts break while others mourn.
Not only do the accidents spill human life. Property is also destroyed while the natural environment is distorted but it is human life that is more important for it can never be reversed, called back, fixed like roads or bought like cars and buses.
“The behaviour where people make fun of death and human injury is sad and confirms that people have lost humanity. It’s not cultural, for in our culture death is respected and news of death should not be announced on social media by those that are first to the scene, it is announced by a relative or the police who are trained to handle such issues. It’s really sad that we have lost our sense of ubuntu,” said traffic safety ambassador Jeys Marabini.
He added that people should value the sanctity of life.
“We cannot buy life, we cannot borrow life. Life is precious, life is from God and we have only one life, you mess it up, that’s it. So people must be very careful, you can buy a car and you can repair a car and you can borrow someone a car but the same cannot be said of life.
“We are approaching the festive season and I want to urge the drivers not to drink and drive. If you want to phone park by the roadside and phone or use WhatsApp. The other thing is that we should respect the rules of the road. Drive safely, observe speed limits, fasten your seat belts and follow road signage. You can save a lot of lives,” he added.
Accidents therefore have an agonising capability of warping the country’s demographic structure and increase national poverty levels as it is not a disease for the poor, neither is it for the elderly but can claim anyone’s life, irrespective of age and social status.
The country has lost breadwinners, politicians, school children, the elderly and many of the country’s celebrities. In short the accidents have unexpectedly robbed the country of its future leaders in a painful way while others had their dreams shattered as accidents have left them confined to wheelchairs with permanent injuries.
And in the quest to bring sanity on the country’s major highways, the Government, through its various responsible departments has continued to up its efforts to reduce the road carnage that has seen a lot of people losing both lives and limbs.
The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development has also come in, working on improving the road infrastructure and signage that for long have been blamed as some of the major causes of carnage.
Although statistics have proven that human error remains among the top causes of the traffic accidents, most drivers point to the poor state of the roads as an easy scapegoat but now that strides are being made to fix the roads expected changes are not coming as an improved road infrastructure has come with it speeding and more deaths.
A lot of initiatives have been employed by various stakeholders to try and bring peace on the country’s roads, mainly targeting black spots.
By definition black spots are road locations that have a record of large numbers of crashes or where road traffic accidents have historically been concentrated. There are often common problems at these sites which can be treated with engineering solutions but traditional and religious methods alike have been employed to cleanse these spots.
Road sections such as curves or bends, blind rises, sharp drops, hidden junctions on a straight stretch or fast road with no or poor signage continue to cause a number of accidents on the country’s roads. Stray animals have also caused a number of accidents with calls to erect road side fences along the country’s highways given heed by the Government.
Another Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe ambassador Pastor Charles Charamba said in an interview that those who do not help save life reminded him of the Biblical Good Samaritan story where the Priest and the Levite chose not to offer assistance to the victim. He said it was unfortunate that a majority saw accidents scenes as an opportunity to assume journalism and resort to publicising pictures before they could help.
“In such instances one is faced with two choices — publicising or helping save life. Unfortunately the majority see accidents as an opportunity for assuming journalism. And you can tell that the pictures are not sent for good reasons but for wanting to be seen as the first ones to break the news. Please people, choose to be the first to help than the first to send heart-rending pictures,” said Pastor Charamba.
