With the festive season fast approaching, we want to take this opportunity to advise Batswana on the roads to be extra careful, cooperative and courteous so as to save lives.
While the year end is supposed to be a time of happiness for many as people take well deserved rest from their various work places, it has regrettably also become a time for tragic sorrow, senseless carnage and unpardonable causes of harm and injury to others.
Perhaps out of excitement and excessive indulgence, Holidays almost always result in increases in road accidents.
We want to use this opportunity as early as now to call on road users in Botswana on these coming holidays to take personal responsibilities to make the coming festive season different.
We note with gratitude efforts taken by government and many other agencies like the MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident Fund) and other parastatals in coming up with initiatives aimed at reducing road accidents.
At such times as the coming holidays, these institutions mount stop stations in some of the country’s busiest roads.
Such stop stations are very important, not just for the information they give which serve as a continued reminder of the importance of road safety, but also for the rest and refreshment they give to drivers.
We urge all road users to cooperate with the officials in such substations.
More crucially, we urge road users to cooperate with the Botswana Police Service, who, it must be unashamedly said, have been becoming more and more professional in their interactions with the public. A few years ago
animal control patrols in many of the main roads across the countries
Stray animals contribute significantly to roads accidents, and since coming up with the innovation of patrols, accidents caused by the same have significantly gone down.
With government now having played its role, we urge road users to meet the authorities half way by doing their small part which, in fact, could go a long way in saving lives.
These include ensuring that their cars are roadworthy and avoiding over speeding and drunken driving.
Road accidents are some of the country’s biggest causes of death.
Evidence and research show that most of the accidents can actually be avoided, if only drivers could be more careful, observe road signs, observe speed limits and avoid drunken driving.
Road accidents in Botswana can not be divorced from drunken driving.
To a very large degree, drunkenness is a critical loss of life in our roads.
Drunkenness is responsible for growing levels of misery that are a direct result of road deaths. Research has shown that it is the young who still have a large role to play in the country’s development that often fall victim to these deaths.
Millions of pula are lost every year by the economy as a result of road accidents.
Once again, we issue the nation with one plea as the Christmas and New Year Seasons approach: many of the road accidents that cause so much pain and losses of life during the Holidays season can actually be avoided.
Can we, therefore, do our part in a small way to contribute to saving life?
We need to take personal responsibilities as early as now to ensure that each one of us plays their part in ensuring road safety.
