Lives, dear lives

Mmegi Editor | Thursday October 10, 2013 20:27

Along major highways leading into the capital city, such as Tlokweng, Boatle, Molepolole, Gabane and Morwa, the carnage has become a daily occurrence. Gaborone's Western bypass and the Mogoditshane end of the New Molepolole Road have also been in the news recently for pedestrians being mangled to death by motorists.

When the Western bypass was opened more than two decades ago, the idea was to ease traffic congestion in the inner city, especially for transiting travellers. Over the years, however, the road no longer skirted the western fringes of Gaborone as the city had grown to the other side to form a seamless contiguity with Mogoditshane. With this urban sprawl came new shopping malls, schools, clinics and places of worship, resulting in more people crossing the erstwhile Western bypass. Today, hardly a week goes by without a deadly accident involving a pedestrian there.  Thus do we call on the Ministry of Transport and Communications to build overhead pedestrian bridges along this deadly road to curb the fatalities and serious injuries.

But the Western bypass is not the only part of the capital city that has become notorious for fatalities and crippling injuries. The others are the roads between Phase II and the new CBD, the Bus Rank and Gaborone West, as well as Game City and Commerce Park. In some areas of the capital, pedestrian lives are safer merely because of the traffic jams that characterise them rather than any better design by planners.

But even as we call for overhead bridges at known danger zones, we are aware that where such bridges exist, pedestrians tend to ignore them because they stand where human traffic is minimal. Examples are the pedestrian bridge on Nelson Mandela Avenue between Payless and Orapa House in the city centre and the one further north on the same road near Kgalagadi Breweries.

While here the accidents may be the result of a combination of poor planning and recklessness on the part of pedestrians, we hold that the latter are more to blame for their rashness. Imposing fines on such people should help restrain the irresponsible behaviour. An example of the sanitary effect of enforcing the law is evident in the reduced incidences of people urinating, smoking or drinking alcohol in prohibited places.

It is our hope that authorities will treat the Western bypass as an exigent case and respond appropriately because loss of life is simply irreversible, while the physical impairment and mental injuries that often result from road accidents is immeasurably painful and burdensome. But in the end, a word of caution is due to pedestrians: While the attitude of motorists towards pedestrians in Botswana has always been wanting, the ultimate responsibility falls on pedestrians to take their lives into their own hands by looking right, looking left and right again before crossing the road. The difference could be as stark as life and death.

Today's thought

'A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.' - Accident Report