We are now moving towards the most dangerous times of the year on our roads, as the rains are falling, schools are on holiday, many people have some extra money as bonuses are paid and spent, and the traditional festive season is about to start.
We received a dreadful warning of what can happen this weekend when a bus smashed into the back of a parked truck near Gweru in the early hours of Sunday morning, killing seven.
In another accident, a tipper truck carrying 69 passengers near Hwange overturned as darkness fell on Friday evening, killing two and injuring 51.
We thought we had managed to bring bus traffic under control, with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development putting in a range of measures that made bus companies take safety extra seriously, including the need to monitor continually the speed of their buses.
The fact that the death toll in the Gweru crash was limited to seven suggests that the speed was under control, but that the need for slower speeds at night was not appreciated.
Night driving requires slower speeds as obstructions must be seen in time for a vehicle to stop before there is a collision.
If it needs 60m to bring a bus or car travelling near the limit to a complete halt, and the lights only allow a dark obstruction to be seen 40m away, then the collision is inevitable, and we have seen a lot of these over the years.
Our speed limits are set for dry daylight conditions, and the Highway Code is specific that these are maximum permitted speeds and that drivers need to be travelling slower in bad weather and at night or any other times when this is prudent.
Perhaps we need to work out a slower limit for night times, perhaps 20km/h or even more below the day limits and fix this by legislation.
The general advice is that people should only drive at night, especially on the highways, when there are no alternatives, and that wherever possible people should postpone their trips to the following day.
In any case night driving cannot be considered routine and slower speeds are required and different driving techniques.
The Hwange accident brings up another problem that has occurred before, people travelling in the back of an open truck.
There is more risk involved and in some countries this is forbidden, everyone being required to be in an enclosed vehicle where there is more protection in the event of an accident and where passengers can be belted in.
Again this might mean the authorities thinking about legal changes in Zimbabwe. We can imagine the sort of pressure there would have been on the truck owner in Hwange to give people a lift, and the need for those people to get home, but sometimes the dangers outweigh the benefits.
Schools closed for the December holidays last week and already bonuses are being paid. The combination is already seeing more travel, and regrettably in many cases drivers with more money to buy "one for the road" at bars and bottle stores before they drive off.
It is very common in Zimbabwe for some drivers to be well above the permitted blood alcohol levels, although there is effectively zero enforcement, but at weekends the percentage rises sharply.
A driver who has had two beers before driving off is probably above the limit, unless they have taken a long break since the second beer, and any more drinks in an evening session will almost certainly bring even a large man to be under the influence.
The police would need more resources to enforce the legislation on speeds and alcohol, the two biggest killers. Our laws are fairly good and follow best practice. The problem has always been the lack of resources for enforcement.
Speed traps are not that expensive and can be automated in the modern world. A blitz against drinking and driving will pay huge dividends although this would require police patrols, and basically night patrols when most drinking and driving is done, with the patrollers armed with breathalysers.
These actual tubes that change colour when the person breathing into them is over the limit could probably be made under licence in Zimbabwe at very modest cost, and the fines could include a fee for the breathalyser that caught the drunk driver.
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Countries that enforce the drink and driving laws rigidly have seen dramatic drops in their accident rates and major cultural changes, where people wanting to go out at night either walk to their local pub or go out as a group with a designated driver drinking soft drinks only so everyone gets home safely, without a stopover for a night in the police cells.
Enforcement of drinking bans and speed limits must include suspensions of driving licences.
Best practice suggests a ban on driving for at least a year for a driver found guilty of driving over the limit of alcohol levels, and a points system for speeding, that would effectively kick in a ban on driving for say the third offence.
We would like to think that resources can be found to beef up the traffic police so they spend more time preventing accidents than their very efficient investigation of the many accidents that occur every night, often because the simple prevention tools of speed traps and breathalysers are not available.
