Windhoek road carnage can be halved

In relation to Windhoek’s level of motorization, the city faces a serious problem of road crashes. From January this year to mid July, 374 lives were lost in 2202 crashes on the country’s roads, leading to 3838 cases with varying degrees of injury.

The Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund and the Namibian Police, City Police, Roads Authority, Namibia Public Passenger Transport Association, Namibia Bus and Taxi Association and the National Road Safety Council launched the road safety campaign from mid-May to mid-June.
Statistics from the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund show that crashes increased by 19, while injuries increases by 543 and fatalities by 12, in comparison to the previous year. The fund is confident that if patience and caution is practised by road users;inhabitants and visitors can reduce the carnage to half the current reported accidents. The Khomas Region currently recorded 139 crashes from the national total of 321 during June this year alone. Statistics show that 54 % of these crashes happen during weekends. The statistics also show that 59% of these crashes were recorded between 14:00 and midnight Traffic violations such as unsafe following distances, not dimming lights, speeding and wrongfully overtaking are the more common causes of road accidents according to MVA. The findings of the intervention will assist in formulating effective short and long term road safety programmes of action such as public education activity to curtail avoidable deaths and injuries in the region. The MVA is alarmed at the current state of road safety nationally and urges all road users to take responsibility on the road. The road crash data collected by the MVA Fund Call Center shows a regular pattern of high road crashes in the Khomas. The region also recorded the highest number of injuries during the same time with 248 injuries compared to 603 recorded nationwide in comparison to the other regions around the country.