Fatal accidents surge

Despite Malawi Police Service (MPS) recording a drop in road accidents in previous years, a four-year trend shows an increase in the proportion of fatal accidents, Nation on Sunday has established.

MPS and road safety specialists have since attributed the surge to poor road conditions, driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol, over-speeding and careless overtaking.

Nation on Sunday analysed statistics presented in MPS and Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) annual accident reports between 2019 and 2022, which established the upward trend of fatal accidents.

According to our analysis, the proportion of fatal accidents to the total number of road accidents in 2019 was 2.1 percent while in 2020 it increased to eight percent.

The reports show that in 2019 there were 10 193 road accidents out of which 528 killed 625 people while in 2020 there were 10 799 recorded road accidents of which 570 killed 1 221 people.

Moving on to 2021, the proportion of fatal accidents to the recorded road accidents hit 12.8 percent before increasing to 16.9 percent in the just-ended 2022.

The proportion emanates from 9 416 recorded accidents out of which 636 accidents killed 1 444 people between January and December 2021.

However, statistics presented in the reports only indicate that between January and December 2022, the proportion increased to 16.9 percent without the finer details.

The steady increase in fatal accidents comes at a time when the United Nations General Assembly has set an ambitious target of reducing the global number of deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes by 2030.

Road safety specialist Kondwani Godwins Nyirenda on Tuesday urged government to improve road conditions which he described as being in the worst conditions.

He said this should be done as the police enforce all road traffic rules and regulations.

Nyirenda said: “There is need for strict enforcement of speed limits and drink-and-drive, and implementation of severe penalties such as detention and confiscation of vehicles and licences, especially focusing on the passenger transport like buses.”

He also suggested that government should establish a passenger transport regulatory authority to monitor and regulate passenger transport in Malawi.

Nyirenda said issues such as issuance of certificates, bus inspections, investigation of accidents, organising driver safety training and driver performance monitoring (through GPS technologies) should be handled by a particular authority.

He said: “Most passenger buses are not roadworthy and are doubtfully being thoroughly inspected; we need to raise road safety standards for our country if we are to reverse these road traffic accidents.”

The World Health Organisation’s report on road accidents published on June 20 2022 states that approximately 1.3 million people die annually as a result of road traffic accidents.

The report further states that a majority of road accidents occur in low and middle-income countries.

Reads part of the report: “93 percent of the world’s fatalities on the roads occur in low-income and middle-income countries even though these countries have approximately 60 percent of the world’s vehicles.”

Another road safety specialist Chifwede Hara attributed the surge in fatal road accidents to a boom in vehicle population in the past four years.

Hara said: “There have been efforts by authorities that they are putting in place but you cannot compare such efforts to the vehicle population.”

He also attributed the surge in fatal accidents to unlicensed motorists, especially those that did not attend driving school lessons.

In recent years, police have mainly been attributing the rise in road accidents to a lack of adherence to safety measures by motorists and other road users.

However, an investigation Nation Publications Limited (NPL) conducted in 2017 established that corruption at DRTSS also worsened road traffic accidents.

The investigation established that unqualified people are able to get driver’s licences while unroadworthy vehicles ply the country’s roads using counterfeit permits or certificates of fitness dubiously issued for the vehicles.

In the following year, data that NPL sourced from MPS also showed that road traffic accidents tripled in the preceding five years, killing about 1 300 people annually.

National Police deputy spokesperson Harry Namwaza in an interview on Wednesday said various strategies are being implemented to tame the accidents.

He said MPS, among others, is intensifying traffic checks to ensure all those contravening road traffic regulations are punished.

Namwaza said: “We are also intensifying proactive strategies where we are sensitising the masses on road traffic regulations.

“We have also observed that most pedestrians do not put on reflective clothing at night for motorists to see them while most motorists cruise carelessly past busy places where speed is regulated and end up hitting pedestrians, mostly at night.”

Meanwhile, the Malawi Government plans to reduce road carnage by 50 percent by 2030.

The plans were disclosed by Minister of Transport Jacob Hara in a statement he delivered at a high-level meeting on Road Safety in New York in July 2022.

The minister attributed the rise in accidents to poor road infrastructure and behaviour of some drivers who cause accidents which erode three percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

In 2022, MPS recorded 5 034 road traffic accidents, down from 8 895 recorded in 2021 representing a 43 percent drop.