Christmas period road accidents kill 11
Malawi Police Service data shows that 11 people died and 34 others sustained various injuries in 36 road accidents during the Christmas period.
Police said the accidents, which occurred between midnight of December 24 and 27, represented a 10 percent increase from last year’s 10 deaths.
On the other hand, the number of people injured during the Christmas celebrations has gone down by 26.1 percent from last year’s 46 road accidents.
The data further shows that the Central East Police Region recorded four deaths out of five road accidents while South West, Central West and Eastern police regions recorded two deaths each against 11, 10 and four road accidents, respectively.
The data also indicates that the number of road accidents have decreased by about 16.3 percent from last year’s 43 to 36 in 2022.
In an interview yesterday, National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya attributed the slight reduction in road accidents over the period to measures traffic police and the Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services put in place to reduce the numbers of accidents and fatalities through enforcement of road safety rules.
He said most of the road accidents were due to speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Said Kalaya: “We believe that the main reason for the reduction in road accidents is the strategies we are using such as deploying traffic officers to work day and night during the festive season. Officers have been on all the major roads in the country with breathalysers.”
The speed limit for city roads and at most trading centres in the country is 60 kilometres per hour (kph) while the maximum speed allowed on rural roads is 100kph.
In the past four years, Malawi has been registering fluctuating trends in road accidents over Christmas.
Records indicate that 16 people died during the period in 2016 against 67 accidents, five died in 2019 against 38 accidents while 11 people died in 2018 against 54 accidents.
