Road accidents claim 60 lives

By: JANA-MARI SMITH

SIXTY people died on Namibian roads and 667 people were injured in December, says the Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund.

The statistics were collected during the MVA Fund’s road safety campaign from November 28 to December 31 2011.  
In total the number of car crashes, injuries and deaths was higher than in December 2010, when 54 people died and 589 injuries were reported.
The MVA call centre received reports of 311 car crashes last month, compared to 275 crashes during the same period in 2010.
Of the 60 people who died in crashes last month, 38 were male and 20 female. The data on the others are still outstanding, the MVA stated.
According to the MVA statistics, more than half of the drivers involved in car crashes   during the road-safety campaign were between the ages of 21 and 35. A staggering 90 per cent of drivers involved in the crashes were male.
The majority of people who died – 29 – were passengers. Seventeen pedestrians were killed by cars while driver fatalities were the lowest at 12. Thirteen of the fatal accidents were collisions, 17 cars overturned and two crashed into objects.
Most of the deaths occurred in the Otjozondjupa Region, followed by the Khomas and Kavango regions in joint second place.
According to the MVA, the worst accident took place on December 12 just outside  Grootfontein when two people died and 23 sustained injuries in a head-on collision.
On December 15, 12 people were injured and two died in a collision on the road between Oshivelo and Omuthiya.
No deaths from car accidents were recorded on the last two days of 2011, but 22 people were injured in nine crashes recorded on December 30 and 31.
According to the MVA, a total of 2 846 crashes and 5 645 injuries due to car crashes were reported during 2011. The total number of fatalities on Namibian roads in 2011, according to the latest data, was 491.

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