The fall in road accidents and road deaths so far this festive season is good news and shows that the major effort by the police, the Zimbabwe Traffic Safety Council and the Vehicle Inspection Department has had some effect, although the numbers are still high and the campaigns need to be continued.
Between December 15 and December 26 last year there were 1 480 accidents with 102 people killed. This dropped for the same 12 days to 1 194 accidents and 87 people killed, a drop of almost 20 percent in the number of accidents and almost 15 percent in the number of road deaths.
This would have been with what was almost certainly a rise in the number of journeys, and so the volume of traffic.
For a start all Covid-19 restrictions have gone, more people have bought cars, and the way the public holidays worked this year saw a five-day holiday for many from National Unity Day to Boxing Day, so more people could get away for a decent break.
The police accident statistics were not all a description of progress. The number of injured in the road accidents jumped alarmingly, from 289 last year to 424, a jump of almost 47 percent.
But this, though, coupled with the fall in the number killed still suggests that more drivers were being more careful and were able to take action that made the accidents less severe, or certainly more survivable. Much better progress would be reducing injuries as well as accidents.
This is important as the road network gets better and the quality of highways improves with the Government catching up on maintenance and putting in general improvements. It is much easier on a decent road to break the speed limits and drive less safely. The potholes and broken surfaces were a nuisance, but they did tend to limit speeds. Now more and more we need drivers to do this voluntarily, as they are obliged to do under the law and the Highway Code.
Which brings us back to the main problem, the standard of driving. While mechanical faults and the like can generate accidents, the police have found that most are the result of driver error and bad driving and deliberate breaches of the road traffic laws, and of the Highway Code.
When the police investigate an accident they do have to assign responsibility and get from the drivers and witnesses a fairly detailed description of what happened.
From this they can make a reasonable determination of whose bad driving caused the accident in the first place, and the fact that in almost every accident someone is charged suggests that almost every accident is caused by human error, rather than some of the explanations that drivers at fault try and offer.
In any case the worst mechanical problems are normally identified at the checkpoints, where it is easy to see if a vehicle has functional tyres, and if the windscreen wipers work in the rain, for example.
And if a vehicle looks dubious the VID staff can do a more thorough check. Most drivers do check out their vehicles before making longer trips since the last thing they want is to be broken down at the side of the road. And that brings up another point about vehicles in poor condition.
Almost all mechanical faults do not cause accidents. What they do is stop the vehicle moving, so it has to be parked on the side of the road while repairs are made.
So once again we are down to drivers, not their vehicles.
While improved police patrols, better assessment at check points and the like can help, a lot, we have to recognise that the police cannot be everywhere.
Even on a long trip most drivers will go for fairly lengthy periods where they will not see a police car or a police check point, and it is on these unmonitored stages that most accidents occur. Few drivers defy the law in front of a police officer.
The general education of drivers, and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Traffic Safety Council has been making a determined effort to improve this, is important. But it does mean that drivers are willing to at least read the advice and then accept the advice.
So although a few good safety pointers are made, such as not driving at night unless absolutely necessary, most drivers have either not heard the advice or simply ignore it if they do.
Yet those same drivers would accept advice in other matters from experts, such as from doctors and nurses when their health is at stake.
Many drivers, regrettably, study the Highway Code once in their lives, when they are swotting up for a learner's licence. Once they have that important document their copy of the code is dumped, or at least allowed to gather dust at the back of a cupboard.
Revisions and new editions are neither bought nor read, and the code is under continual improvement and updating, so its writers and publishers are doing their job. Unfortunately, the targeted readers are not.
The professional drives, those who drive trucks, buses and cars for a living, working eight hours a day every day, do tend to keep up to date. For a start their employers insist on this, and make arrangement for staff to undergo defensive driving instruction.
This is one reason why these drivers tend to be better, often a lot better, than average. It goes beyond experience and includes maintaining their standards.
During the festive season the proportion of professional drivers falls. While bus drivers are kept busy, fewer trucks are on the road. So much more the festive traffic comprises private cars and pick-ups, and they are abroad in far larger numbers. This adds to the number of accidents. When we look at the police reports we see that the professionals rarely appear, it is ordinary drivers making mistakes who build up the lists.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The police have identified two major causes of accidents, speeding and drinking.
But they are under-resourced when it comes to enforcement. Speed traps these days are now very easy to use and in some countries are even automatic and unmanned, just taking a picture of the vehicle and its registration plate as it speeds past.
Breathalysers are becoming ever more cheaper and convenient, and surely one of our more innovative manufacturers could obtain the technology and a licence and make them in Zimbabwe, so that with a modest budget the police could have this most useful tool to gather evidence when they have grounds of suspecting a driver has been indulging.
Again countries that go to some lengths to enforce speed limits and maximum-permitted alcohol levels have seen dramatic falls in their accident rates. But in the end, a zero accident rate or a very low accident rate requires a commitment by all drivers to drive safely and not take chances, and a recognition that none of us are either perfect or immortal, and so need to drive properly.
The police, VID and Zimbabwe Traffic Safety Council have shown this festive season that their extra enforcement and educational work pays dividends, but the high accident and death rates still show that all drivers need to respond.
