Martin Endjala
The Zambezi Region is regarded as one of the lowest vehicle accident regions in the country, contributing three percent of total crashes (1,729) for the period January to July 2022.
However, the data indicates that many people in the region remain vulnerable to road crashes due to a lack of understanding.
According to the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (MVA) statement issued yesterday, the MVA is currently conducting a week-long Road Safety Awareness Campaign in the Zambezi Region which commenced on 8 August and will run until Friday, 12 August.
The campaign is aimed at the continuous promotion of safe road usage, user attitudes and behaviour by coordinating activities through joint law enforcement operations in the region.
The campaign is said to be looking at scholar patrol interventions, with most crashes involving school-going children, which occurs within close proximity of schools due to the vulnerability of these children. Hence, scholar patrol programmes were introduced in an effort to create safer road environments around schools. The Zambezi Region scholar patrol interventions will be conducted at three schools namely, Mulumba Primary School, Kizito Secondary School, and Katima Mulilo Combined School. This is being done as part of the Fund’s strategy of raising pedestrian safety awareness among school learners.
These is a surge of fatal accidents lately reported in the media, including a recent accident report of a school pupil who was run over by a bus while walking from school.
Public Education and Road Safety Interventions will also be carried out to increase road safety awareness and product knowledge among communities and pedestrian safety interventions at schools.
The Fund will also carry out public passenger safety sessions at various public passenger loading zones in the region.
The MVA fund will also be engaging stakeholders to maintain, nurture and build new relations, including Regional Commanders of the Namibian Police, the Regional Directors of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Social Services as well as the Chief Executive Officer of Katima Mulilo Town Council and the Emergency Medical Rescue Services and Traffic Law Enforcement.
With these interventions, the Fund strives to stretch its footprint as well and improve the livelihoods of all citizens through road safety awareness campaigns, thus calling on road users to adhere to set speed limits, plan well in advance ahead of long trips, while also calling on the use of seatbelts for all
passengers.
“We further call on members of the public to make use of the Fund’s accident response number 9682 in the event of a motor vehicle crash, as doing so may save lives,” the statement reads.
