On my last piece, I promised my next post would be entertaining. Unfortunately, this will not be the case today. A burning issue is on the plate. So I chose to say a few words on that.
Yesterday, I heard this disturbing news of a terrible road accident in the late Tuesday afternoon near Gelan town in East Shoa zone. A minibus and a bus collided head-on at a narrow road. Eighteen people were killed,of which the entire passengers in the minibus. A friend of mine, who was at the scene, told me that three members of a family, one of which is the driver of the minibus, were among the dead.
Road accidents are no special cases in Ethiopia nowadays. What's new is their magnitude; the number of deaths, the various forms of injuries, and the bizarre debris of vehicles involved. The reoprts that are heard on the media every morning are disturbing. The multifaceted damages caused by these accidents are getting bigger and uglier by the day.
Last month and the first week of June were, according to my observation, the deadliest times of road accidents. Just three weeks ago, another horrendous accident at Meri, an area around my neighborhood, happened. An automobile was crushed by a truck after the two collided at a crossing where one side was fenced for the construction of a light train line. The passengers at the Toyota hatch-back; a mother, her baby, and the maid, all killed in the accident.
We can go on and list the number of this tragic accidents all day long. But the big issue is , What are we going to do about it?
What is happening to us? Is human life worth nothing? When will all end?...
The questions are endless. Whatever the answers may be, they must come quick.
It's so disheartening to learn that Ethiopia ranks first in the world in the level of traffic accidents. This accidents are often accompanied by accelerated death rates. A study released in 2008 shows that more than 300 people die each year of car accidents shockingly, in Addis Ababa alone. The number of deaths is in thousands annually. It's better to leave the amount of damages in property. Ironically, all these are happening in a country whose total population of vehicles doesn't even reach the one million mark.
Looking at the nature and causes of these accidents, around 81% are caused by negligence by the motorists, 9% by pedestrians, 5% by technical failures, 4% by the nature of our roads, and the remaining 1% is attributed to other factors. This tells us that we all have a stake in what's happening.
If this is the case, then we have to act soon, like now. One of the messages that I heard recently read marking the Road Safety Week says "How Many Accidents are Needed To Make You Understand The Tragedy?!" Yes? How many more? As my friend puts it, even HIV/AIDS didn't kill as much people as the roads did. Shouldn't this be a lesson to stop this madness at once?
There were a lot of things that I wanted to say over the matter, but I fell short of words to share my feelings right now. I'm upset, confused, and emotional about this issue. The only thing I can say now is: May God Protect Us All from this tragedy! I don't want the foreigners to scare of this blessed land over its road fatalities. The ugly image imposed by our drought-stricken days is more than enough.
Yesterday, I heard this disturbing news of a terrible road accident in the late Tuesday afternoon near Gelan town in East Shoa zone. A minibus and a bus collided head-on at a narrow road. Eighteen people were killed,of which the entire passengers in the minibus. A friend of mine, who was at the scene, told me that three members of a family, one of which is the driver of the minibus, were among the dead.
Road accidents are no special cases in Ethiopia nowadays. What's new is their magnitude; the number of deaths, the various forms of injuries, and the bizarre debris of vehicles involved. The reoprts that are heard on the media every morning are disturbing. The multifaceted damages caused by these accidents are getting bigger and uglier by the day.
Last month and the first week of June were, according to my observation, the deadliest times of road accidents. Just three weeks ago, another horrendous accident at Meri, an area around my neighborhood, happened. An automobile was crushed by a truck after the two collided at a crossing where one side was fenced for the construction of a light train line. The passengers at the Toyota hatch-back; a mother, her baby, and the maid, all killed in the accident.
We can go on and list the number of this tragic accidents all day long. But the big issue is , What are we going to do about it?
What is happening to us? Is human life worth nothing? When will all end?...
The questions are endless. Whatever the answers may be, they must come quick.
It's so disheartening to learn that Ethiopia ranks first in the world in the level of traffic accidents. This accidents are often accompanied by accelerated death rates. A study released in 2008 shows that more than 300 people die each year of car accidents shockingly, in Addis Ababa alone. The number of deaths is in thousands annually. It's better to leave the amount of damages in property. Ironically, all these are happening in a country whose total population of vehicles doesn't even reach the one million mark.
Looking at the nature and causes of these accidents, around 81% are caused by negligence by the motorists, 9% by pedestrians, 5% by technical failures, 4% by the nature of our roads, and the remaining 1% is attributed to other factors. This tells us that we all have a stake in what's happening.
If this is the case, then we have to act soon, like now. One of the messages that I heard recently read marking the Road Safety Week says "How Many Accidents are Needed To Make You Understand The Tragedy?!" Yes? How many more? As my friend puts it, even HIV/AIDS didn't kill as much people as the roads did. Shouldn't this be a lesson to stop this madness at once?
There were a lot of things that I wanted to say over the matter, but I fell short of words to share my feelings right now. I'm upset, confused, and emotional about this issue. The only thing I can say now is: May God Protect Us All from this tragedy! I don't want the foreigners to scare of this blessed land over its road fatalities. The ugly image imposed by our drought-stricken days is more than enough.
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