Month-end madness on Windhoek streets

WINDHOEK had one of its worst weekends in years this past weekend, with at least 76 road accidents recorded by the City Police between Friday and Sunday.

Alcohol is traditionally blamed for such month-end madness, but the City Police’s Superintendent Adam Eiseb said yesterday that neither alcohol nor speeding seemed to have played much of a role in this weekend’s high accident toll.’Looking at the nature of the accidents and the fact that only five serious injuries were reported in all of those, as well as the fact that we had 16 drivers arrested for drunken driving, alcohol and speed don’t seem to have played too great a role here,’ Eiseb said.He added that most of the drivers arrested for over-indulging in alcohol were not linked to any of the recorded accidents.According to Eiseb, the high number of accidents might be an indication that the city’s road infrastructure is not coping with the traffic load anymore.’We might soon need to look at establishing alternative routes,’ Eiseb said.About 23 people were slightly injured in the weekend’s accidents and 11 pedestrians were hit by cars. No fatalities were recorded.Most of the accidents took place on Friday, with two accidents reported on Sunday and four on Saturday.Eiseb pointed out that these were only the accidents reported to the City Police, and that others might have been reported to the Namibian Police.NamPol’s public relations department could not provide any accident statistics yesterday.