Trucks, brakes and accidents
on Rob Wootton (Zambia), 28/Mar/2011 14:44, 34 days ago
Mazabuka, sadly, never seems far from the news at the moment and for all the wrong reasons. Ever since I have arrived here, and friends have reliably informed me for many years before that, the main high street that drops down through the town has been a scene of what feels like monthly traffic accidents. This week was no exception with the worse one so far taking place. A overloaded, open light truck crashed into the iron railings at the bottom of the high street, opposite our main supermarket, resulting in the death of at least 12 people.  The death toll expected to rise due to the serious nature of the injuries sustained by a further 10 people. The passengers were fishmongers travelling for a fishing expenditure. The truck had already experienced two mechanical faults since starting off in Lusaka, the Police advised the driver that the vehicle was overloaded but it was allowed to proceed, and then the driver asked the passengers to get out of the truck as it reached Mazabuka fearing problems in negotiating the hill; a few fortunate ones heeded this advice.Since the accident there has been much public criticism, often politically motivated, about the lack of a by-pass road for Mazabuka, which is an ongoing debate due to the large number of trucks that pass through the town. The road into is admittedly steep (with speed bumps inserted to slow traffic down) and at the bottom of the hill it curves sharply to the left which causes a problem for heavily laden trucks. A by-pass along whatever route selected would certainly solve some of the problems and dangers. However, it would ignore the obvious issue that the blame for most of accidents is the poorly maintained and serviced vehicles, which combined with heavy goods and journeys on poor quality roads leads to the all too regular destruction in Mazabuka.