Road Safety
April 13, 2012
Small mistakes can lead to major accidents: If drivers of minibus taxis don’t look to the left before taking over other cars, if lorry drivers rush through villages in a far too high speed, if children play on the roads without being watched. And when these accidents occur, they could at least be less severe if passengers had put on safety belts or mini busses would not be as overloaded as they usually are.
In Angola, today traffic accidents are the second most frequent cause of death amongst young adults after Malaria. At the same time, in Europe the number of road deaths has been significantly reduced through education about usage of safety belts and other ways of prevention. Today Germany has much less road deaths than in the 1950s, though traffic has clearly taken up since then.
Throughout this radio drama we will follow the Wanjiru family in a period of their lives where they see and experience how dangerous the roads in Africa can be - with sometimes tragic consequences. We will also talk to the road safety expert Gilbert to find out how we can make travelling on the roads safer and, crucially, save lives.
Deutsche Welle’s Learning by Ear is available in six languages: English, Kiswahili, French, Hausa, Portuguese and Amharic.