City Police clear air on weekend accident statistics

THE Windhoek City Police on Tuesday pointed out a few errors that crept into a report headlined ‘Month-end madness on Windhoek streets’.
The weekend’s statistics included 76 road accidents between Friday and Sunday, with five people seriously injured and 23 slightly injured.

A total of 35 of these accidents happened on Friday, while 24 and 17 occurred on Saturday and Sunday respectively.The Namibian’s report said only four accidents happened on Saturday and two on Sunday.The City Police arrested 16 drivers on charges of drunk driving over the weekend.Superintendent Adam Eiseb said on Tuesday that the high number of accidents compared to the relatively low number of people arrested on drunk driving charges indicated the need for looking at other factors contributing to road accidents.’Generally, you look at the six Es of traffic enforcement, namely engineering, education, enforcement, emergency management, evaluation and environment,’ he said.This weekend’s statistics may point to the need to look beyond the Police’s enforcement duty to the areas of education and engineering.’When you think that Windhoek has a vehicle growth rate of about eight per cent annually, one can consider that the increased traffic contributes to the problem,’ Eiseb said.He added that this statement did not mean the Police considered alcohol abuse by drivers in any less serious light.’In all accidents drivers are screened for alcohol. Speeding and alcohol could be a factor in any accident,’ he said.He noted that drivers sometimes think they can get away with drunk driving by fleeing the scene after an accident, but added that such drivers face an additional case of failing to stop at the scene of an accident.This, he said, is serious as being caught drunk behind the wheel.