English
Kinyarwanda
The Rwanda National Police sternly warns drivers against breaching traffic rules, which continues to cause loss of lives.
Supt. Jean Marie Ndushabandi, the spokesperson of the traffic and road safety department said though the rate of road accidents reduced tremendously, there are still drivers who drive carelessly leading to injuries and death.
He outlined over speeding, negligence, driving while on phone and mechanical faults as some of the continued cause of accidents.
He also said that some drivers, especially those of transit vehicles drive long distances without rest, which causes them to lose focus while driving.
"Drivers who hit the road for days without resting become physically and mentally faint thus losing control while on road," Supt. Ndushabandi explained.
"Stern action will be taken to any driver or road user who will be caught violating traffic regulations," Supt. Ndushabandi warned.
Thirteen road accidents were registered across the country in the last three days, killing five people and injuring eleven others.
Most of these deadly accidents involved transit vehicles, some of which are foreign registered.
He appealed to owners of these trucks to always have more than one driver when hiting long journey.
“It’s also in the interest of drivers to abide by the road precautions because they will also be sparing their lives and those of their passengers and their
automobiles,” he explained.
He said, accidents decreased from 943 in 2012 to 504, last year.
The decrease, he noted, was due to the efforts invested in road safety awareness programmes, erecting more sign posts on hot spots and relative change of the attitudes of road users.
