Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund and Botswana Police Service (BPS) have declared readiness and determination to diligently serve the public during the festive season.
MVA Fund Senior Manager – Injury Prevention, Mompati Bontsibokae has noted that the Fund has developed festive season road safety campaign plan, which entails Road Safety Road Show that started on the 2nd – 22 December 2022 covering places like Lobatse, Jwaneng, Maun and Kasane.
Implemented under the theme Crash-Free Festive, the campaign is undertaken in collaboration with a number of stakeholders such as Botswana Police, MRI Botswana and Botswana Insurance Company.
According to Bontsibokae the objective of the campaign is to flood the nation with road safety messages to raise awareness for road users to minimize engagement in risky behaviors such as excessive speeding, drunken driving, unsafe use of the road by pedestrians as well as to encourage use of safety belts and child restraints.
However, unlike in the previous years, the Fund will not be involved in roadside educational campaigns during the holidays in order to facilitate easy traffic flow and to avoid traffic congestion through roadblocks during peak times.
Nonetheless, BPS will be visible on the roads to ensure compliance. “We hope to achieve increased road user risk awareness levels which should lead to minimal risk-taking behavior and reduced number of road traffic crashes this festive season hence the theme: #Crash-Free Festive,” said Bontsibokae, adding that an accident-free holiday is possible if everyone would play their part.
Giving an overview on road accidents statistics thus far, Bontsibokae shared that 380 lives were lost from 285 fatal crashes during the period January-December 18th 2022.
This shows an increase in the figures as compared to 2021, since only 370 lives were lost from from 295 road accidents.
Therefore this shows a 2.7 percent increase in fatalities despite a 3.4% reduction in fatal crashes, a predicament which is attributed to some horrific road crashes which claimed more lives in Francistown area (16) and Ghanzi (8) respectively this year.
“The last two months of the year are crucial as this period is characterized by the hype of the festive season. There are so many festivities and movement therefore people tend to let down their guard and as a result there is crime, anti-social behaviors and road accidents,” said BPS spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Dipheko Motube, further sharing that in addition to getting ready for the festive peak they are still pushing the 60 days of action on crime and road safety campaign.
In a bid to ensure that there is rule of law and to ensure that Batswana enjoy a crime and road accident free festive, the police boss declared that they want to support other national public safety initiatives and have therefore partnered with different stakeholders.
In conclusion he urged Batswana to refrain from updating social network sites on their movements to avoid exposing themselves as potential targets of crime. He also advised members of the public to collaborate on safety efforts.