STOP NEGLIGENT DRIVING!

Sir,

Thank you for allowing me space to state my views in your newspaper. Customer service, particularly in local kombis is a serious problem in the Kingdom of Eswatini. Unfortunately, thousands of the country’s citizens rely on this mode of transport on a daily basis.

The citizens use these kombis to take them to various destinations including work, schools and even church. And the reality is that even if most people can afford to buy their own cars, public transport will always be there and will be used by the people.

Week in and week out, we witness accidents which occur on the country’s roads and while one cannot predict that danger awaits, it has been proven that some drivers drive recklessly leading to accidents and lives being lost.

This is why today I would like to urge our drivers especially those who drive kombis to at least slow down because speed kills. We have witnessed incidents where the kombi drivers are guilty of driving at high speed because they want customers. This is not fair because in the end, the innocent customers or passengers die yet they were not the ones who asked for the chase.  Many calls have been made to make road users responsible while driving. As to why they keep ignoring those calls we do not know.

Attitude

Until drivers change their attitude and behaviour on the road, people’s lives will continue being lost. The drivers need to understand how precious the lives of human beings are. They need to understand that today it could be my own brothers losing his life and tomorrow it could be the driver’s son or daughter.
The lack of tolerance on the roads is a big problem and I wish our government can make the fines stiffer.

The police need to stop focusing on drink-driving offenders only but also those drivers who drive recklessly. Drivers who are irresponsible on the roads should be brought to book and made to pay stiffer fines. In that way, we will be able to root out the problem as a country.

If this evil continues, we will continue to have children who will grow without parents, wives without husbands and brothers without sisters or the other way round.

It is high time drivers learned to follow all the driving rules and standards so that we can put an end to the unnecessary loss of lives on our roads. We must remember that one life lost is one too many.

Edwin Dlamini

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