The Sunday News
Lovert Mafukure
The roads as we knew them yester year, have changed, they are congested, they are in a bad state and they are full of different people with different lines of thinking.
Every morning we have pirate taxis doing their errands, mums doing school runs, kids cycling to school and countless pedestrians. All of them need to get back home at every day’s end, unfortunately some don’t.
Society is made up of different characters, raised differently with diverse views and very different approaches to life and its priorities.
Every morning we wake up to different calls but all of us have to be somewhere at some specific time — we are all rushing somewhere, work, school runs you name it, I guess that’s why they termed it loosely . . . rush hour!
Now, we shouldn’t be losing our lives, our cars and our sanity over rush hour, should we? I mean there has to be a way to beat it. We cannot be yelling and howling through misty closed windows trying to convey a message that won’t be heard by anybody.
Perhaps real change will come from the few people that actually realise there is a problem and decide to do something about it. Doing something is not pointing at people whom we think are the wrong doers but starting with ourselves.
Pile ups are common during rush hour. We have pirate taxis that operate like they work for the mafia, they don’t care about road regulations, they don’t care about you and they only care about that extra dollar in the pocket.
So far we have established that their behaviour in not going to change any time soon, so what are we to do? Beat them at their own game, but how? Lets be the change that we seek!
First of all, keeping a safe distance behind any car is the first step towards surviving this hour. I have personally witnessed accidents caused by abrupt and unannounced stops.
Following too closely to the next person because you are in a rush won’t get them to speed-up, it only puts you in harm’s way in — case they decide to stop or turn without signalling, so always keep a safe distance behind.
Two or three car lengths is alright for rush traffic depending on your speed. It gives you ample time to react and gives you enough braking distance. Remember, the faster you go, the bigger the gap you have to leave in-between.
It might sound silly but leaving home early may save you the headache and road rage.
There is never enough time to catch the last fish before waking up, to bath the kids, bath self, the school run and eventually get to work, so that leaves everybody in a rush to get everything done in time to avoid hiding from the boss for coming late.
Leave home in time, drive leisurely in no rush and you will avoid rush and the rage, its the small things that make the biggest difference.
Use of cellphones while driving is illegal for a good reason. Rush hour traffic requires your full attention and any slight diversion can land you in someone’s boot.
It’s happening on our roads everyday but all of us have the same disease — that “it won’t happen to me” disease, but it will.
We are so caught-up with the Instagram life, the Facebook live driving and the Whatsapp calling and texting.
We are addicted, we can’t put the phones down, we want to snap a pic for evidence later in the chat group.
Wherever you go, wherever you look there’s a driver on their phone, we can’t split concentration and if ever we are to make our roads any safer we have to lead by example, I will start by putting my phone down, so will you and the next person, before you know it, it becomes a culture.
Modern cars now have all kinds of gadgetry upfront for the driver to drown all his attention in. We have GPS navigation, touch screen radios, TV screens you name them but the more you try to find the latest track on that touch screen radio the more you lose concentration on the road.
So the next time you try to lose concentration by fidgeting with things that don’t matter think of the kids in your back seat or the ones in the next car and the ones crossing the road trying to get to school.
A split-second to change the track may be what you need to change someone’s life story for ever so start with you and who knows, today may be a safer day.
Share with us your rush hour or highway tales, Lets make our roads a safer place to be. Have your say. Drop me an email or WhatsApp. Till Next time. Drive safely.
@Lovert116/ Automart Used Spares Centre – Quality Used Japanese Spares
+263 772 33 99 38 — [email protected]/ Facebook: @automartusc
