Road crashes impose serious economic and public health burdens on Namibia. The economic cost is estimated at more than N$1.3 billion annually.
Despite having some of the best road infrastructure in Africa, Namibia experiences severe road safety challenges, reporting more than 400 fatalities a year.
This translates into a traffic mortality rate of approximately 14 deaths per 100 000 people and hundreds of lives lost every year.
Road accidents remain a severe public health and economic crisis.
Pedestrians and other non-motorised transport (NMT) road users carry a large part of this road safety burden.
Vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists consistently account for the highest percentage of fatalities and injuries, with the Khomas region historically observing the highest numbers.
SAFE SYSTEMS
According to the Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (MVA), most road crashes in Namibia can be attributed to excessive speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, fatigue, reckless driving and overtaking, vehicle faults and tyre failures.
Although roads are not counted as the main contributor to the road safety burden, infrastructure improvements provide major opportunities for reducing road fatalities and injuries.
Even in places with large numbers of pedestrian and other vulnerable NMT users, infrastructure provision is often inequitable.
The Safe System approach recognises that humans are fallible and will make mistakes.
There are also limits to the kinetic energy exchange which humans can tolerate (e.g. during the rapid deceleration associated with a crash) before serious injury or death occurs.
The characteristics of a Safe System approach include: mistakes, errors of judgement and poor decisions, all intrinsic to humans.
The road system needs to be designed and operated to account for this.
Humans are fragile. Unprotected, we cannot survive impacts that occur at greater than around 30km/h.
The ‘engineered’ elements of the system – vehicles and roads – can be designed to be compatible with the human element, recognising that while crashes might occur, the overall system can be designed to minimise harm, particularly by making roads self-explaining and forgiving of human error.
Road safety is the shared responsibility of those who use roads and those who manage, design, build and maintain the road system, and those who provide post crash care.
Installing speed humps on the B1 highway has raised numerous concerns among road users, with many questioning their effectiveness and suitability for this type of road.
Speed humps are not inherently negative; they can be effective traffic-calming measures when used in the right environment.
However, it is important to carefully assess the road classification, traffic volumes, speed limits, surrounding land use, and safety risks before deciding which calming measure is appropriate.
Guidance shows that speed humps or speed tables are mainly appropriate for access roads, not highways or major mobility routes.
APPROPRIATE MEASURES
As the B1 is a national road carrying freight, buses, emergency vehicles, tourists and long-distance traffic, the use of road humps should be carefully questioned.
This does not mean speed humps are bad; it means they must be placed on the correct road type.
For the B1, road safety may require a combination of better speed enforcement, rumble strips, warning signage, reduced speed zones in built-up areas, pedestrian facilities, lighting, median barriers, intersection redesign and proper road safety audits.
Speed humps alone are, therefore, not the true answer to road fatalities on the B1.
The real solution is context-sensitive traffic calming: the right measures, on the right road, for the right safety problem.
– Prisca Mayumbelo is a road safety advocate and current president of The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. She writes in her personal capacity.
