A Campaign For All, Not Some Elitist Jamboree
EVERY now and then a major campaign is launched with much fanfare in order to raise awareness about a noble issue. Often, however, the message is lost in the euphoria and the adrenalin of the moment. Sometimes the main issue is forgotten because opportunists hijack the leadership and at other times outsiders rubbish it for whatever reason they choose.
We hope no such negative vibe befalls the ‘Cycling Safety Awareness Campaign’ which started this week and is scheduled to run until September. Promoting awareness of cycling is long overdue and it needs the support of all Namibians. The official launch of the campaign by the Namibian Cycling Federation will take place on 3 May and the crusade will reach a climax on 17 May when everyone will be asked to make it a ‘Cycle To Work Day’. It would be a pity if all the energy and attention about the importance of cycling is reduced to that one day only or a few months.
For a small group of Namibians cycling, and specifically using non-motorised mode of transport, is a hobby. Hence, some will aim the campaign at ‘cyclists and lovers of the bicycle’ while merely appealing to other road users to be considerate of those riding their bikes.
In case it has gone unnoticed, a sizeable number of Namibians use bicycles as a necessity. We dare say that many more would cycle regularly to work, school and whatever destination they can reach in a 30km or 40km radius if their lives were not threatened by other road users, especially motorists.
The Namibian was unable to get comprehensive statistics, but it is telling that, according to the 2011 census, 11 percent of Namibian households own bicycles. The households that own cars are double that. About six percent of the households own an animal-drawn cart.
If less than 40 percent of households own any essential mode of transport, how many Namibians are left stranded and how many would have used bicycles if conditions were made more bearable for them to do so? Granted, the brave, the desperate and the foolhardy are undeterred. But pity the labourers who, for example, have to cycle from one end of the capital city to the other before dawn and after dusk to get to work or otherwise fend for their families. In some towns, old men past their retirement age gingerly ride around with their goods such as welding machines or retail products to eke out a living.
These cyclists and many people on foot navigate the roads, crowded out by impatient and aggressive motorists, including truck and bus drivers, who have neither compassion, nor compunction in bullying other road users. It is those with their heavy combustion-driven vehicles who should show some courtesy and appreciation for the difficult task fellow citizens have to perform with less horsepower than they.
Perhaps most importantly, the country’s political and economic leaders ought to become sensitive to the needs of the majority of their citizens too and make life bearable for those who cannot find a reliable way of getting from A to B. If the emission of harmful gases from fuel-driven vehicles does not convince our politicians, let them at least understand that most Namibians have a hard time going to and from places, literally.
How much, for instance, of the N$6.1 billion that is earmarked for “transport and logistics” under the Targeted Intervention Programme For Employment and Economic Growth [TIPEEG] will be spent on improving public transport and related infrastructure? How many, if any, walkways have been built or rehabilitated to make it easy for people on foot? What is being done across the country, especially in towns, to create space for cyclists and people who have to walk from one place to the other. Few, if any, signs are visible of a deliberate effort to cater to the easy movement of people who do the menial work of developing a country. Why?
It is important that local and national government leaders, businesses and individuals jump on the bandwagon of the Namibia Cycling Federation’s nationwide campaign for cycling safety and broaden it to a general culture of sharing roads and pathways.
This campaign should not be limited to a small band of elites who merely want to feel good cycling around the capital city and in several towns of Namibia. It should also not be disparaged by others simply because they were not initially part of it or are too selfish to share the roads.
Make it a campaign for all and not some elitist mumbo-jumbo.