Dar es Salaam’s Rotary Club, in collaboration with the police, has
launched a road safety campaign, sensitizing motorists on the danger of using
mobile phone while driving.
The campaign goes under the slogan ‘The President of Rotary club of Dar
es Salaam Ms Sharmila Bhatt said the reason they launched the campaign was to
create awareness about the chronic habit.
“It is known that a driver talking on a mobile is four times more
likely to get an accident; and if you text while driving you are eight times
more likely to cause an accident,” Ms Bhatt said on Monday in a statement.
The Traffic Police Chief, SACP Mohamed Mpinga, said legislation was
being reviewed to criminalise the act of phoning or texting while driving.
“While legislation is being worked on, our utmost concern currently is
to ensure that people drive safely. That is why we are working with Rotary club
of Dar es Salaam to achieve the objective,” said the police chief. He added:
“When a citizen is educated on the matter of safety, he generally responds
positively rather than using laws to achieve compliance.”
The Minister for Transportation, Mr Omari Nundu, told parliament in Dodoma
recently that a research conducted by SUMATRA between 2002 and 2010 had shown
that the government lost 1.96trn/- as a result of road accidents.
The amount
was calculated based on damage on transport facilities and infrastructure,
medical care to victims, monitoring, loss of manpower and cost of education
provided.
The campaign is being supported by corporate companies and the Police
force believes this sensitization campaign would assist in making Dar and
upcountry roads very safe. Tanzania is among countries with high road fatality
rates in Africa with records showing that almost 3,600 people died in road
accidents and 20,000 were injured last year alone.
Road accidents do not only cost the country about 3.4 per cent of gross
domestic product in economic loss, but are increasingly constraining the
provision of healthcare and medical services.
Rotary International is the world's first service club organization,
with more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. Its members are
business leaders who work locally, regionally, and internationally to combat
hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training,
among other activities.
Source: tzexchange.blogspot.com
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