PRESS RELEASE
Lusaka, Tuesday, 2nd January 2018: Statistics on the New Year road
fatalities, released by the Zambia Police today, are cause for great
concern to the Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST), which are the highest
New Year death toll to date. These numbers are a sad indictment on road
traffic safety and enforcement initiatives, and calls on both the
government, and driving public, to take serious stock of what these
numbers mean.

According to the police, during the 2018 New Year holidays which was
from 29th December, 2017 at 18 00 hours to 2nd January, 2018 at 06 00
hours, Police recorded 212 Road Traffic Accidents throughout the country
of which 16 were fatal Road Traffic and 20 people were killed and 68
people were seriously injured. When compared to 2016 New Year period,
they were 17 people killed.

ZRST notes, during the short period of 2017 Christmas and New Year, 42
lives were lost, an increase, over the same period in 2016. And during
the whole of 2016, over 2200 people were killed. While these deaths
cause enormous human psychological life time pain, they cost Zambia’s
economy over K5 Billion, dragging many innocent families into poverty.

ZRST Senior Communications Advisor, Mailos Mwale said one death on the
roads is too many.

“At this time of year, which should be a time of happiness and love and
families getting together, to see so many families being ripped apart by
these shocking accidents is a tragedy.

“We are therefore, calling upon, His Excellency, the Republican
president of Zambia, Mr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu to take drastic measures
against this road pandemic, in the same way he has reacted to 42 cholera
deaths caused over 2 months”.
ZRST