Deadly traffic accidents sound alarm bell no one should ignore

By Elias Hakizimana

Fatal road accidents have so far claimed 15 lives of Rwandans across the country within two days, the death toll whose rate is unusual in such a short period of time. This grave situation needs urgent action to reverse the accident trend in order to save lives.

On Tuesday July 16, 2019 early morning, a huge fatal accident tool away 11 lives of Rwandans where the coaster smashed and damaged killed half of the passengers in Gitarama cell, Bwishura Sector in Karongi District.

On the same day in Kayonza District in Kabare Sector, three people died in a road accident. Today on July 17, 2019, a bicycle rider lost life on road.

The police spokesperson from road security department in Rwanda National Police Senior Superintendent JMV Ndushabandi has called on bus owners to cater for their drivers’ life after experiencing these huge cases happened so far.

He urged transport company owners to not let their drivers be tired of long-time driving tasks.

He said that bus owners need to think deeply about lives of drivers and passengers apart from looking on the money.

“Transport companies need to think about their drivers and passengers’ lives, they need to first ensure that their drivers have taken enough rest before taking a journey to avoid stress,” Ndushabandi noted.

Recently, Rwanda National Police has launched a campaign called ‘Gerayo Amahoro’ with the main target to reduce road accidents and ensure road safety but, a while later, these deadly accidents happened.

SSP Ndushabandi told the media that Gerayo Amahoro cannot be the only solution besides keeping in mind that accidents are bad.

“The existing campaign does not mean that road accidents will finish today, in other words, accident means something that happens unexpectedly,” he said, adding that the messages given so far during this campaign has contributed to a certain reduction of road accidents as things could have been worse rather than before.