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BY JENNIFER DUBE
FIVE people died, two of them on the spot, when two minibuses collided along the Mutare-Masvingo road Friday morning bringing the death toll on the country’s roads this festive season to a staggering 43 inside 10 days.
Police spokesperson Andrew Phiri yesterday said one of the minibuses burst a tyre and encroached onto oncoming traffic, causing the accident. Three other people died on admission to hospital.
Phiri said the accident, which happened around 9:45am, is one among many which happened in all provinces yesterday but they were yet to get the exact number which was expected to be very high. Another 42 were injured.
Phiri said as at 9am, 595 accidents had been recorded since the monitoring of festive season accidents started on December 15.
Of these, 28 resulted in the 38 deaths, Phiri said.
A total of 595 people were injured in the accidents, most of which were caused by human error and negligent driving.
The police arrested 159 people for drunken driving and impounded 2 336 unroadworthy vehicles.
A total of 31 711 traffic tickets had been issued out.
Harare had the bulk of the accidents, totalling 288, followed by Bulawayo with 79.
Midlands accounted for 63 while Masvingo and Matabeleland South had 37 each.
Mashonaland West had 26 while Matabeleland North had 20. In Mashonaland Central there were 16 in Mashonaland Central while 15 were recorded in Manicaland.
“We would like to continue urging members of the public, especially motorists that they should drive with care because the roads are busy and the fact that it is raining does not help the situation,” Phiri said.
“We would also like to urge them to comply with the commands of the police officers who are heavily deployed on the roads.”
On Tuesday nine people died, including three children in Harare’s Central Business District died when a 32 seater commuter omnibuses crashed into a Nissan UD truck along Simon Mazorodze Road.
Holidays in Zimbabwe have become associated with the high number of fatal accidents, which have been blamed on the poor state of roads and poorly serviced cars.
Government has in the past been accused of failing to respond properly to the crisis.
Early this year it tried to ban the importation of second hand vehicles and left hand drives, which it blamed for the carnage but the move has since been put on ice.
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