Zambia: The Police force of Zambia has recorded a surge in road traffic accidents in the transition period from the years 2023 and 2024. The people were enjoying and celebrating new year, when these incidents took place.
Nine children under the age of 16 were in road traffic accidents in transition to 2024. The police officials revealed that three of the children were killed in these road traffic accidents. Three children among these numbers sustained severe injury and another three were slightly injured.
Meanwhile, sixteen people were recorded dead from 262 Road Traffic Accidents captured from 18:00 hours on 31st December, 2023 to 06:00 hours on 01st January, 2024 during the New Year Holiday.
Police Public Relations Officer, Rae Hamoonga has shared some details about the road traffic accident victims. According to the PPRO, six of those deceased were in Central Province.
Five fatalities were recorded in Lusaka and two in Luapula. Meanwhile the Copperbelt, Eastern and Northern regions recorded one case each.
Hamoonga added, in his road fatality update that 40 of those accidents were classified as serious injury. In these incidents, 67 persons were seriously injured, 39 as slight injury with 56 persons were slightly injured.
The PPRO claimed that 167 road traffic accidents were recorded as damage only road traffic accidents.
He highlights that in the same previous holiday getting into last year, 188 road traffic accidents were recorded, showing an increase of 74 in the latest figures. The officials have thus expressed some concern about the figure, urging people to exercise caution while driving.
Hamoonga states that 14 persons were killed from 13 fatal accidents in the period heading to 2023 as compared to this year’s number which has increased to 16 in the transition to 2024.
Meanwhile, Hamoonga reveals that during the 2024 transition period in the aforementioned time frame, 28 reports of unlicensed drivers were recorded countrywide, with a 15-year-old juvenile amongst the offenders.
He explains that under hit and run traffic accidents, the police force has recorded 18 incidents. In this number, four people are dead thereof, six seriously injured and another four slightly injured.