TRAFFIC SAFETY MANDATORY CARRIAGE OF FIRE EXTIGUISHERS

In a bid to curtail vehicles from being burnt during accidents or mishaps on the road, the Ministry of Roads and Transport introduced Statutory Instrument 154/2010 which makes it mandatory for motorists to carry fire exnguishers in their motor vehicles. The instrument made it also mandatory for all motorists to carry the following accessories in the vehicles, jack, spare wheel, triangle portable red reflectors. This was a move meant to reduce vehicles from being completely gued by fire.

With the large influx of motor vehicles imported into the country, with most of them automac transmied work mostly on electrics. This has made them to be prone to fire in the case of accidents or electrical faults. Again the vehicles use highly pressurised fuel passed through to the engine through the fuel injecon system. This makes the vehicles vulnerable to fire should they be involved in accidents. One has to travel on some of the highways in the country to see the remains of some of this vehicles on the side of the roads. These could have been prevented from destrucon had the motorists carried with them fire exnguishers. Apart from the destrucon of the vehicles, roads and the areas affected the fire caused by these accidents has resulted in millions of dollars in damages.

The same Statutory Instrument made it mandatory to carry a spare wheel, jack and reflecve triangle reflectors. This was seen as act to siphon money from motorists by government through the traffic cops. This instrument though not poplar with motorists has played a big role in the reducon of road accidents on the countries' roads. Red reflecve triangles at night warn other road users of the vehicle breakdown in front making them to approach the same with cauon. Some vehicles aer a break down could not be pulled of the road as one of their wheels may be damaged since they would not have had a spare wheel. This has led to accidents with innocent people losing their lives simply because a motorist failed to move the vehicle to the side of the road. Most accidents occur at night when motorists fail to move their vehicles of the road and fail to put reflecve triangles to warn other road users. In line with the SADC Traffic guide lines which, call for all members states to conform to the SADC traffic regulaon Zimbabwe had to introduce this instrument to conform to the regional guide lines on traffic safety