馃嚦馃嚘NamibiaSouthern Africa
Namibia faces significant road safety challenges despite good infrastructure, with over 400 fatalities annually
via The Namibian3 min read
Namibia experiences severe road safety challenges, with an estimated economic cost exceeding N$1.3 billion annually and over 400 fatalities each year. This translates to a traffic mortality rate of approximately 14 deaths per 100,000 people. Pedestrians and other non-motorized transport users, particularly in the Khomas region, account for a high percentage of these fatalities and injuries. The Motor Vehicle Accident Fund attributes most crashes to excessive speeding, driving under the influence, fatigue, reckless driving, and vehicle faults. While roads are not the primary contributor, infrastructure improvements offer significant opportunities to reduce fatalities. The Safe System approach acknowledges human fallibility and the limits of human tolerance to kinetic energy during crashes. This approach suggests designing roads and vehicles to minimize harm, making roads self-explaining and forgiving of human error. Road safety is a shared responsibility among road users, system managers, designers, builders, maintainers, and post-crash care providers. The installation of speed humps on the B1 highway has raised concerns regarding their effectiveness and suitability. Guidance indicates that speed humps are generally appropriate for access roads, not highways or major mobility routes. For the B1, a national road, appropriate measures may include better speed enforcement, rumble strips, warning signage, reduced speed zones, pedestrian facilities, lighting, median barriers, inter
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This summary was AI-generated from a story originally published by The Namibian.
Must ReadActing High Court Judge Natasha Bassingthwaighte ruled that suspended Namibian Police inspector general Joseph Shikongo unlawfully restricted the right to demonstrate by preventing a public demonstration on unemployment from occurring on Independence Day in 2023. The judge stated that the Public Gatherings Proclamation of 1989 only requires notice for public gatherings, not permission, and cannot be used to refuse or prevent them. She found that directing the demonstration to a different date, based on an unsupported belief of potential hostility, eroded the essential content of the right to demonstrate. Bassingthwaighte awarded activist Michael Amushelelo N$300,000 and fellow activist Dimbulukeni Nauyoma N$80,000. This compensation is linked to their arrest, detention, and prosecution in 2023, after they were acquitted of charges including public violence and incitement. Amushelelo was held for nearly seven months. The judge concluded that the minister of safety and security and the inspector general failed to prove the lawfulness of the arrests, and that Amushelelo and Nauyoma were maliciously prosecuted. The defendants were also ordered to cover the legal costs of the activists.
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