Opinion / Columnist
Traffic police negligence responsible for accidents
17 Aug 2015 at 08:52hrs | Views
PROBLEMS typically fit into two categories, the simple and the complex. I am not convinced that road accidents are an especially complex problem.
There are readily available solutions that have been implemented in other jurisdictions; from these we can learn. This apparent simplicity leaves one wondering whether those responsible for solving these problems are clueless or they simply don't care.
It would be absurd to suggest road accidents can be entirely eliminated, what can be done though is to reduce their occurrence and severity.
Traffic police have failed on both measures.
A few weeks ago there was a tragic accident involving a Zimbabwe-bound Lion King bus that left many dead and many more injured.
One horrific picture that circulated on social media showed a woman whose legs had been severed off above the knees.
She was clearly in shock and seemingly unaware of the extent of her injuries.
In a recent public announcement, the police identified speed as the chief culprit in most accidents.
It is not uncommon to be overtaken by a bus travelling at over 120km/hr.
If buses moved at the stipulated 80km/hr, many accidents would not be as devastating.
While it is good that the police understand what is causing these accidents, the question is what are they doing about it?
The current police speed traps are antiquated and woefully inadequate.
The police can be bribed and the equipment does not leave video evidence to empower auditors to question why a particular driver was not ticketed.
There is a rather embarrassing video on Youtube showing a foreign biker bribing our traffic police.
The biker had a camera in his helmet and recorded the entire episode which he later posted onto the Internet.
I am not interested in bashing the police over corruption.
The fact of the matter is that people are inherently corrupt and systems must be built to make it impossible to engage in corruption.
An appropriate example is Zinara.
It recorded an immediate and dramatic spike in revenue at tollgates when it introduced its automated billing system that reads vehicle registration plates.
This immediate spike in revenue simply demonstrates that Zinara employees had been stealing on a grand scale and were put out of business by the introduction of this robust system.
The first solution that can be deployed quickly and at low cost are speed cameras at tollgates.
This system, which measures average speed, is already at work in other countries.
If the distance between two tollgates is 120km and you move between the two tollgates in less than an hour, that means you were speeding and a ticket would be in order.
At the next tollgate a police officer would issue a ticket, alternatively tickets could be mailed, but the extent of lawlessness on our roads would be better served by immediate tickets.
This technology is not complex; the necessary data already exists as does the tollgate infrastructure.
The software itself could be written for a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
The tickets themselves are something of a joke.
A police officer recently told me that the fine for refusing to stop at a road block was a mere $20. Yes, just $20.
If one is in a rush to the airport, then it would be cheaper to run from the police and pay the $20 on your way back.
The point here is that our tickets are ineffective as a deterrent.
Going through a red traffic light is a pretty egregious offence, but the fine is no more than a slap on the wrist.
This sends a rather simple message, if you are in a rush take the risk and beat that red light, if you are caught the fine is insignificant.
Even if our tickets were more effective, the fact that the police do not have a centralised system means you could get 50 tickets in a year and not lose your licence.
Worse still, our police have no way of actually checking if someone has a licence or not.
A person without a licence can easily tell a police officer they left their licence at home and that would be the end of it.
Nothing is stopping the police from contracting some clever young developers to write them a small application that runs off USSD like Ecocash and can check if a person actually has a licence.
Cost cannot be the reason why these things are not being done because these solutions are relatively cheap to deploy.
So why are these simple solutions not being implemented?
I suspect the answer lies in how performance evaluation and employment contracts are structured.
If the police officer in charge of traffic was evaluated on the percentage drop in road fatalities, things would quickly improve because such an officer would have a sense of urgency in seeking a solution.
At one time the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede ran the most inefficient Government operation in this country.
Long queues wound around the building out into the road and back into Herbert Chitepo Avenue.
All that has changed.
Getting a passport is now a breeze and everyone is pleased.
What changed? Nothing, someone simply started doing their job.
Ndatenda.
There are readily available solutions that have been implemented in other jurisdictions; from these we can learn. This apparent simplicity leaves one wondering whether those responsible for solving these problems are clueless or they simply don't care.
It would be absurd to suggest road accidents can be entirely eliminated, what can be done though is to reduce their occurrence and severity.
Traffic police have failed on both measures.
A few weeks ago there was a tragic accident involving a Zimbabwe-bound Lion King bus that left many dead and many more injured.
One horrific picture that circulated on social media showed a woman whose legs had been severed off above the knees.
She was clearly in shock and seemingly unaware of the extent of her injuries.
In a recent public announcement, the police identified speed as the chief culprit in most accidents.
It is not uncommon to be overtaken by a bus travelling at over 120km/hr.
If buses moved at the stipulated 80km/hr, many accidents would not be as devastating.
While it is good that the police understand what is causing these accidents, the question is what are they doing about it?
The current police speed traps are antiquated and woefully inadequate.
The police can be bribed and the equipment does not leave video evidence to empower auditors to question why a particular driver was not ticketed.
There is a rather embarrassing video on Youtube showing a foreign biker bribing our traffic police.
The biker had a camera in his helmet and recorded the entire episode which he later posted onto the Internet.
I am not interested in bashing the police over corruption.
The fact of the matter is that people are inherently corrupt and systems must be built to make it impossible to engage in corruption.
An appropriate example is Zinara.
It recorded an immediate and dramatic spike in revenue at tollgates when it introduced its automated billing system that reads vehicle registration plates.
This immediate spike in revenue simply demonstrates that Zinara employees had been stealing on a grand scale and were put out of business by the introduction of this robust system.
The first solution that can be deployed quickly and at low cost are speed cameras at tollgates.
This system, which measures average speed, is already at work in other countries.
If the distance between two tollgates is 120km and you move between the two tollgates in less than an hour, that means you were speeding and a ticket would be in order.
At the next tollgate a police officer would issue a ticket, alternatively tickets could be mailed, but the extent of lawlessness on our roads would be better served by immediate tickets.
This technology is not complex; the necessary data already exists as does the tollgate infrastructure.
The software itself could be written for a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
The tickets themselves are something of a joke.
A police officer recently told me that the fine for refusing to stop at a road block was a mere $20. Yes, just $20.
If one is in a rush to the airport, then it would be cheaper to run from the police and pay the $20 on your way back.
The point here is that our tickets are ineffective as a deterrent.
Going through a red traffic light is a pretty egregious offence, but the fine is no more than a slap on the wrist.
This sends a rather simple message, if you are in a rush take the risk and beat that red light, if you are caught the fine is insignificant.
Even if our tickets were more effective, the fact that the police do not have a centralised system means you could get 50 tickets in a year and not lose your licence.
Worse still, our police have no way of actually checking if someone has a licence or not.
A person without a licence can easily tell a police officer they left their licence at home and that would be the end of it.
Nothing is stopping the police from contracting some clever young developers to write them a small application that runs off USSD like Ecocash and can check if a person actually has a licence.
Cost cannot be the reason why these things are not being done because these solutions are relatively cheap to deploy.
So why are these simple solutions not being implemented?
I suspect the answer lies in how performance evaluation and employment contracts are structured.
If the police officer in charge of traffic was evaluated on the percentage drop in road fatalities, things would quickly improve because such an officer would have a sense of urgency in seeking a solution.
At one time the Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede ran the most inefficient Government operation in this country.
Long queues wound around the building out into the road and back into Herbert Chitepo Avenue.
All that has changed.
Getting a passport is now a breeze and everyone is pleased.
What changed? Nothing, someone simply started doing their job.
Ndatenda.
Source - the herald
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