Notwithstanding
its numerous problems and hardships, which have crippled and slowed the
development of Africa as a whole, road accidents remain a major cause of death
on the mother continent.
With
its improved road network and arguably the best on the continent and one of the
best in the world, South Africa’s death toll as a result of road accidents
remains the highest on the continent followed by Nigeria.
Africa
is faced with so many problems, like poor politics, which have claimed so many
lives of innocent souls, diseases, corruption, greed and so many others.
However, road accidents can only be singled out as a major cause to this
predicament.
South
Africa for example has a good road network however, these first world roads
claims a big portion of innocent people via accidents.
The
economies of our African nations from cape to Cairo are ran on grants from the
west and other European nations and of late far east Japan and China, however,
that money does not reach where it is supposed to go.
Our
leaders end up embezzling the grants and feeling no remorse at all,
subsequently a sub standard infrastructure is either erected or not at all,
channeling the funds to their other personal programs forgetting the tax payer.
With
all the natural resources that Africa has, majority of Africans have no access
to good roads, and those roads that are present are not up to standard.
Some
African leaders tend hoodwink the visitors who come to their countries, by
beautifying the roads which links and connect to their capital cities, they
will drive them on only those roads which are fairly done and connect from the
Airport to the meeting place.
In
this situation my fellow Africans have perfected the proverb that says that ‘a
visitor back bites’ but they tend to forget that these visitors have embassies
in their countries and one of the tasks of these diplomats is to report back to
their respective bosses back home.
Many
of Africa’s roads are without light and traffic Lights or Robots as they are
referred to in some countries, the traffic officers have taken over the
function these Robots, standing for hours day and night, and I wonder whether
these innocent officer do get double pay.
In
many countries of Africa, driving at night you have to make continuous prayers
to reach your destination safely, because of the darkness, potholes and heavy
traffic.
Many
roads that connect to rural areas are poorly constructed; they don’t have
tarmac, and the worst is that the money collected from the taxes and grants
from donor nations is swindled by corrupt leaders.
The
notorious dangerous roads are here in Africa, no government can claim to have
worked out this problem, if it exist, it is one or a handful of them.
The
roads are in darkness, narrow, with potholes, the traffic is high, and the
security is less or non-existent, and the worst of all, these dilapidated kind
of roads are found in many of our Africa’s capital cities not in the villages.
Highway
robbers do take advantage of Africa’s poor road networks to steal, kill and
take away lives of innocent people.
Ironically,
the victims do pay taxes to the central governments but you wonder why the
maintenance is not up to standards or it does not exist at all.
To
sum it up, road accidents remains a major reason for many lost lives in Africa,
and this is driven by a number of factors, the major ones being inexperienced
drivers, who drive without going through required training courses, corrupt
leaders, stress, over speeding and personal judgment which is affected by
alcohol and remember drinking is a thing culture in many African set ups.
Guest
editorial
“If
a neighbor is killed in a car accident, do you sell your car and stop driving?”
Mario
Andretti
