In Ethiopia you can drive a car if you are willing to kiss the death. Today I did not have any plan to blog any thing about car until I saw a car accident post on one of friend's post(Facebok Page) . It took my attention, first I thought it was a garbage disposal dumpster. It has some chairs and other stuffs but when I closely watch the pictures it was a faceless SELEM Bus. On the picture the face of the bus is gone, you see only the middle of the bus wide open only few chairs dangling around. Since there were only few pictures I followed the poster's page from Facebook and found more pictures. Wow! the caption was scary, the bus was full of Gonder University students going back from vacation(not sure). From the picture it seems the bus slammed face to face to another big truck , from the picture I can tell all the people (including the driver) could not survive because the truck cabin and the bus front (face) were almost merged. Yeap they became one. That is so scary and sad. According to the picture caption it happened in Selulta area few miles northern West of Addis Ababa.
My question is who do you blame? The car, the road, the driver, the passenger, the law, or who? From my opinion I blame three things, these are the driver, the law and the road.
1. The Law. One of the worse traffic law in Ethiopia is passing a car in a one lane road. Means if you have a car in front of you and the car is too slow you can pass the car by entering to the incoming traffic lane. That means if in case there is any incoming traffic you will slam in full speed to the incoming car. That is deadly because two deadly weapons collide in full speed the impact will be twice. Means catastrophic. Another branch for the law is the law enforcer or traffic. Unless the traffic police is not stopping driver and demanding money as ATM machine the law will be broken all the time. Having a strict regulation and avoiding bribe will reduce many accidents . Those drivers who are less competent, reckless and driving with alcohol should be banned.
2. The Driver. Ethiopian Drivers are the most dangerous drivers where they see driving fast and reckless is brave and skillful. Sometimes some drivers think they are in a Hollywood action movie. They underestimate people's life and forgetting the car they are driving is a killing machine . In my opinion the government should confiscate all diver licenses and re-issue a new one after they pass a tough driving test. Some people think it may kill the country's economy but it can be done step my step. Like drivers whose last names starts from A- B in certain month and so on. When the first batch is ready the next batch will continue, the trend will continue until every one is ready to drive safely.
3. The Road. The road is one of the contributing factor for accidents. It is narrow and can not accommodate more than one car in each way. Means fast drivers have two choices pass or follow the car in fornt of them. If they follow they will be late, if they want to pass they will take 50/50 chance. Means, in most cases they will be ok but one day they will end up exposing to worst bad dream in their life. So what will be a solution? At least two way lanes in each directions for certain traffic accident prune areas or designate pass and no pass areas may help . That means NO PASS in one lane road and OK PASS in two and more lane roads.
There several reasons and propositions to reduce traffic accidents in Ethiopia but it will be up to the citizens to seek safety. At the end of the day citizens are the one who will loose their lives
Real Traffic Accident on Feb 23 2014 nearby Selulta between sinotruck and selam bus.90% of the passengers were GONDER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS traveling for vacation their family. 3 persons were dead. Photo Credit Kidist Solomon
My question is who do you blame? The car, the road, the driver, the passenger, the law, or who? From my opinion I blame three things, these are the driver, the law and the road.
1. The Law. One of the worse traffic law in Ethiopia is passing a car in a one lane road. Means if you have a car in front of you and the car is too slow you can pass the car by entering to the incoming traffic lane. That means if in case there is any incoming traffic you will slam in full speed to the incoming car. That is deadly because two deadly weapons collide in full speed the impact will be twice. Means catastrophic. Another branch for the law is the law enforcer or traffic. Unless the traffic police is not stopping driver and demanding money as ATM machine the law will be broken all the time. Having a strict regulation and avoiding bribe will reduce many accidents . Those drivers who are less competent, reckless and driving with alcohol should be banned.
2. The Driver. Ethiopian Drivers are the most dangerous drivers where they see driving fast and reckless is brave and skillful. Sometimes some drivers think they are in a Hollywood action movie. They underestimate people's life and forgetting the car they are driving is a killing machine . In my opinion the government should confiscate all diver licenses and re-issue a new one after they pass a tough driving test. Some people think it may kill the country's economy but it can be done step my step. Like drivers whose last names starts from A- B in certain month and so on. When the first batch is ready the next batch will continue, the trend will continue until every one is ready to drive safely.
3. The Road. The road is one of the contributing factor for accidents. It is narrow and can not accommodate more than one car in each way. Means fast drivers have two choices pass or follow the car in fornt of them. If they follow they will be late, if they want to pass they will take 50/50 chance. Means, in most cases they will be ok but one day they will end up exposing to worst bad dream in their life. So what will be a solution? At least two way lanes in each directions for certain traffic accident prune areas or designate pass and no pass areas may help . That means NO PASS in one lane road and OK PASS in two and more lane roads.
There several reasons and propositions to reduce traffic accidents in Ethiopia but it will be up to the citizens to seek safety. At the end of the day citizens are the one who will loose their lives
Real Traffic Accident on Feb 23 2014 nearby Selulta between sinotruck and selam bus.90% of the passengers were GONDER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS traveling for vacation their family. 3 persons were dead. Photo Credit Kidist Solomon
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