Ref: Call to End Road Traffic Deaths in Zambia

Congratulations on your Election as the 7th President of Zambia! You are taking office at a time in Zambian history when our country is facing many challenges.

We are writing to bring your attention to one of the immense, but solvable challenges facing Zambia, and one with which you, sadly, have personal experience — road traffic fatalities. In the past decade, our country has lost over 20,000 lives as a result of road accidents. You know all too well the pain and devastation that comes when someone is killed in a crash. These are not just numbers — each life is someone’s family, friend and neighbour.

We are asking that you commit to reducing road traffic fatalities to zero by 2050 as other nations are doing. As a nation, it is time to take decisive and collective action to address road traffic safety and save tens of thousands of lives from preventable traffic accidents.

For decades, we have known the solutions to prevent traffic accidents and watched other countries make incredible progress towards this goal, while we have lacked the leadership to make road traffic safety a national priority in Zambia. We look to you to prioritize a goal of zero fatalities and advance accompanying policies across your administration. We encourage you to engage and lead on this topic nationally while joining other nations as they share efforts in road safety.

We are committed to road traffic safety and know what it takes to achieve zero deaths. It will take action at the local and national levels. A commitment by you and your Administration to prioritize road safety, including adopting the Safe System approach, will provide the leadership needed to save lives. By making a public commitment early in your Administration to end road traffic fatalities, you will demonstrate the importance of safe mobility for all and set the tone at the national level to prioritize road safety in planning and policy.

We call on the government to consider the following recommendations immediately:

1. The most important method to bring down accidents is strict enforcement of speed limits. 90 % of accidents can be avoided by strict enforcement of speed limits. Heavy Penalty should be imposed on ALL those who cross speed limits. If this is strictly implemented, nobody will dare to go at high speed.
2. Tamper proof speed controllers/limiters be made mandatory for all heavy vehicles and buses.
3. Ensure that the money made from Toll Road is fully utilised for the construction and maintenance of roads.
4. Promote walking and cycling to reduce congestion and accidents by ensuring all roads have safe and wide footpaths and cycle paths
5. Newspaper, Television and other media should be effectively used for Public Road Safety Awareness.
6. Existing traffic rules should be strictly enforced and corrupt traffic enforcement officers should be removed
7. Reform the Road Traffic Act 2002, and enact more stringent traffic rules

We look forward to working with you and your Administration to ensure people in this country can move about safely.

Yours Faithfully,

Daniel Mwamba
Chairman
Zambia Road Safety Trust