A respected and well known medical practitioner, Malvern Chironga, was this week killed in a motor car accident along Harare Drive, just before the ZRP Dog Section as he drove towards Bluff Hill after turning right from Kirkman Road.
Saturday Dialogue with Ropafadzo Mapimhidze
Not so far from that junction, another medical practitioner, Tafadzwa Kandawasvika, missed death by a whisker hardly a week ago, after leaving Warren Golf Club which is located at the corner of Kirkman Road and Harare Drive. Pictures taken from the scene by a neighbour who plays golf with him are just horrible to set eyes on. The Mercedes-Benz he was driving was hit from the back and it is a miracle that he is alive today.
The death of anaesthetist Chironga was so horrific in the sense that he was hit by an orange truck that was allegedly trying to avoid impact with another truck that had had a tyre burst, resulting in driver losing control of the vehicle. Three other vehicles were crushed in the process, but there were no further deaths or injuries recorded.
The orange truck, according to onlookers, allegedly encroached into the lane of Chironga’s oncoming ML Mercedes-Benz vehicle and plunged head-on. The ML Merc was allegedly dragged onto the side of the road some hundreds metres from the initial spot of impact. The orange truck was intact save for a few scratches at the point of impact.
I arrived at the scene about 40 minutes after the accident and there was commotion and angry expressions.
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When firefighters arrived on the scene, they displayed total ignorance about what they were expected to do. One firefighter actually asked onlookers if they had a knife to perhaps cut the seat belt that had trapped Chironga.
A knife, small axes and many other items are equipment firefighters MUST carry when attending to such scenes. So, how did they leave their station without these basic tools of the trade? Are they not the same fire fighters that sometimes allegedly attend to such scenes with no water in their trucks?
Their actions agitated onlookers who were shouting and jeering at them.
We urge council, the Ministry of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development and many other stakeholders like the ZRP to be more proactive rather than reactive before more blood spills.
Six years ago, soldiers from the Presidential Guard assisted in the evacuation and extrication of dozens of people hurt or killed in a bus crash that happened at the Tynwald North/Kirkman Road rail road junction in March 2007.
That time, former Harare South MP Hubert Nyanhongo promised to spearhead placement of humps to control speed at this junction where signals are dysfunctional. But nothing has been done to this date.
However, what infuriated onlookers at the Harare Drive scene of accident is the fact that there was an alleged chase between some law enforcement agents that were hot on heels on some sand poachers. Why they decided to conduct such an assignment at such a peak hour when there is so much traffic inflow really baffles the mind.
Harare Drive, starting from Kirkman Road up to Second Street, seriously needs humps to scale down speeding vehicles.
Junctions along these roads are black spots that are also notorious for smash-grab-and-dash criminals that pounce on unsuspecting motorists.
Speeding motorists are sometimes unaware that Harare Drive ends at Kirkman Road and plunge into a ditch across the road.
Are city authorities waiting for the death of a more prominent person or perhaps a politician before taking meaningful action?
The traffic lights at Harare Drive/Lomagundi Road were installed following the death of a district administrator in the early 80s when Eddison Zvobgo was Minister of Local Government and Town Planning. The death of that civil servant prompted action after so many lives of Zimbabweans perished at the spot. But what really does it take to construct humps along these roads? What of a traffic circle somewhere along those stretches of roads?
Before dollarisation, council and many other authorities complained that the lack of forex was the major hindrance to execute the majority of these projects. What excuse will they give now since Zimbabwe is now awash with United States dollars?
Two private schools, namely Maranatha and Tynwald, are located in that neighbourhood where children skip, jump and cross either Kirkman Road, Harare Drive or Samora Machel Avenue.
There are neither pedestrian crossings nor police details assisting children manoeuvring their way to these schools. A schoolchild was hit recently on schools opening day this term along Harare Drive as he was crossing to one of the schools, one onlooker said.
Are we waiting for more children to die before some corrective action is taken?
We urge all stakeholders to sit down and strategise on how best these roads can be made safer for both motorists and pedestrians, because the present scenario also indicates a deterioration of driving standards in Zimbabwe.
It was such an unpleasant and humiliating sight of Chironga, a man who had saved hundreds of lives during his illustrious career, lying exposed like that for more than two hours.
A better service in his last moments of his life would have been most befitting to this patriotic and experienced medical professional.