Road accidents rise in 2025 despite major road rehabilitation

CALEB CHIKWAWAWA

HARARE – Zimbabwe has recorded a rise in road traffic accidents in 2025 despite the rehabilitation of several major highways, prompting stakeholders to attribute the increase to lawlessness and poor driver behaviour rather than road infrastructure deficiencies.

This emerged at the recently held All Stakeholders’ Road Safety Workshop, hosted by the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe in collaboration with the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ).

Addressing delegates at the workshop, Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) national spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi said 2025 had seen a notable increase in road accidents, resulting in more deaths and injuries, even as government invested significantly in road rehabilitation.

“The government is doing everything. The roads are being repaired. I can say some of the examples here. The Harare-Bulawayo road which has been repaired is now in top-notch condition, the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge is in top-notch condition but sadly everyday we are recording fatal toad accidents among those repaired roads.

“Is it the road which is the problem? Is it the government which is the problem or it's the driver? What is the problem? Where are we getting it wrong?

“We are doing everything even in terms of policing, we are doing everything but the attitude is not changing. We are saying we can't continue like this ladies and gentlemen.”

Nyathi revealed that statistics from the first eleven months of the year pointed to a worrying upward trend in road traffic incidents compared to the same period last year.

“As we speak, if we look at what has happened in the last 11 months of the year, the year has already ended. From January 2025 up to November 2025, we have recorded 54 102 road traffic accidents, and when you compare with 2024, we had 49 292 road traffic accidents meaning that our accidents are rising.

“We have got some questions to ponder, what is happening. If we look at the number of people who have been killed, for these eleven months we have got 2 175 people, and last year we had 2 008. On the number of people who have been injured, this year we have had 11 551 and last year we had 10 479. The figures are not lying , we have a challenge as stakeholders.”

He called on all stakeholders to urgently reflect on the underlying causes of the rising fatalities and injuries on Zimbabwe’s roads.

Nyathi identified errant driver behaviour as the primary contributor to road accidents, while also acknowledging gaps in road safety infrastructure within urban centres.

“The major challenge that we have is our attitude as drivers on the road. We are always on a rush, always on a hurry. Another challenge which is have also realised, we must fix traffic lights, road markings must be fixed. In most of our CBDs, road markings are nowhere to be seen,” said Nyathi.