WINDHOEK, Nov. 23 — Namibia on Tuesday launched the annual road safety campaign, which will run until mid-January 2023.
The campaign is set to negate or mitigate the impact of any negative externality that is likely to occur on the country’s national road network during the festive season.
“We have arrived yet at another busy period of the year when we engage in operations on our national roads, promoting road safety, enforcing traffic laws, and saving lives through emergency response efforts,” Eliphas Owos-Oab, the chairman of the National Road Safety Council, said at the launch of the campaign in the Namibian capital of Windhoek.
Speaking at the launch event, Namibian Deputy Minister of Works and Transport Veikko Nekundi said a high number of crashes and resultant casualties are anticipated during the festive season holidays and events, mainly because most roads experience high volumes of vehicular traffic.
“As a government, we call on all citizens, law enforcement agencies, and road safety practitioners to promote the good cause for safer roads in Namibia during this festive season and beyond,” he said while urging stakeholders within the sub-sector to form a united front to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities on the roads and achieve the target of a 50 percent reduction by 2030.
According to the Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund of Namibia, during the campaign, the fund will ensure increased emergency response capacity on the country’s main highways; activate the new emergency medical response base that has been necessitated by the lack of paramedics services; first responder awareness will be conducted, and the fund has started to roll out its Green Dot Programme which deals with public transport passenger safety in the six high crash regions, among other measures.
Namibia ranked 14 in the world in terms of road traffic accidents in 2020, recording 3000 road crashes compared to 2673 in 2021. (Xinhua)
Namibia launches road safety campaign before festive season
