Driving instructors teach students to dodge danger on Zimbabwe roads

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HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — When Tafara Muvhevhi, a Zimbabwean driving instructor, began work 16 years ago, his job was simple: teach the highway code and prepare learners to ace their driving test.

Today, his priorities have changed. His main concern is no longer just the exam, but whether his students will survive some of the world’s deadliest roads. This is vital in a country where road crashes rank among the top killers, according to the national statistics agency, and road accident fatality rates are among the continent’s worst. In Zimbabwe, a crash hits every 15 minutes and five die and 38 are injured each day, according to the country’s traffic safety agency.

“Back then we were teaching by the book, it was all by the book,” Muvhevhi said while coaching his latest student through parallel parking and smooth reversing into spaces marked by blue drums on a dusty and worn-out tarmac training ground on the outskirts of the capital, Harare.

Once known for orderly traffic and well-kept roads, Zimbabwe’s road safety steadily has deteriorated since the 2000s, degenerating into traffic chaos in the 2010s as economic decline gutted road maintenance, informal public transport boomed and enforcement weakened. Despite renewed repairs and policing efforts, dangerous driving remains deeply entrenched.

“The other drivers are no longer patient with us, they hoot, they overtake illegally, putting pressure on the students so our students are basically trying to adjust,” he said, before his student navigated through streets where both drivers and pedestrians have little regard for rules.

For the student, 19-year-old Winfrida Chipashu, a university accounting major, the roads of Harare are more intimidating than balancing ledgers.

“You cannot really compare it to accounting because (in accounting) you have all the concepts,” Chipashu said. “When you are driving in the jungle, you are confused by other people who are not following the road rules.”

Roads become more dangerous

The southern African nation’s roads turn most lethal during festive seasons and other holidays, but peril lurks daily, driven largely by dangerous driving that the government says is of alarming concern.

Zimbabwe has one of Africa’s highest road accident fatality rates, with the World Health Organization estimating nearly 30 deaths per 100,000 people.

On the roads, the contradictions are stark. Minibus taxis bearing “safety first” signs swerve wildly into pedestrian lanes and oncoming traffic. Fare collectors hang off doors and the back of moving vehicles shouting for customers. Sedans jammed with 12 passengers, including in the trunk, defy five-seat limits.

Authorities say 94% of road accidents in the country of 15 million people are caused by human error. Cellphone distractions among drivers and pedestrians cause about 10% of deaths, said Munesu Munodawafa, head of the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe.

“That is frightening,” said Munodawafa. “For such a small population, those numbers are alarming.”

A regional problem

Zimbabwe’s crisis mirrors a wider African pattern. Road accidents here kill about 300,000 people annually, about a quarter of the global toll. The continent has the world’s highest fatality rate at 26.6 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a global average of about 18, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. This is despite the continent of 1.5 billion people accounting for just about 3% of the global vehicle population.

Road traffic deaths in Africa are also rising quicker than in any other region, with fatalities jumping 17% between 2010 and 2021, according to the World Health Organization’s latest Africa road safety report released in mid-2024.

The WHO links the surge in part to weak road safety laws and enforcement, reckless driving, and rapid urbanization and motorization. Vehicle registrations in Africa nearly tripled between 2013 and 2021, driven by imported used vehicles and a sharp rise in motorcycles and three-wheelers. Pedestrians, cyclists and riders of two- and three-wheelers account for about half of all fatalities, according to the U.N. agency.

In Uganda, where unregulated motorcycles dominate transport, reckless overtaking and speeding caused 44.5% of crashes in 2024, police there say, while in neighboring Kenya and across East Africa, frequent accidents on poor roads and dangerous driving fuel repeated calls for tougher road safety rules.

Searching for solutions

To increase road safety, police in Zimbabwe have recently acquired body cameras and breathalyzers and are pushing for a review of the driver licensing system, including docking points for offenders and a revamp of driver training programs to highlight the dangers of reckless driving.

“Drivers are not licensed to be killers, they are licensed to practice road safety and safeguard lives on the road but sadly that is not the case,” said police spokesperson Paul Nyathi.

For instructors like Muvhevhi, survival has become the lesson.

“When we are teaching our students, it’s no longer an issue of just obtaining the driver’s license,” he said. “We teach them to stay alive in spite of incorrect actions of other road users.”

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