REPORTS that the Mpongwe-Luanshya Road has continued to record a high number of road traffic accidents is a wake-up call to the Road Transport and Safety Agency  (RTSA) to vigorously enforce road traffic rules in rural areas.
It must be made clear that road traffic accidents do not only occur along this stretch but on many other rural roads where, because of the absence of RTSA and Police traffic officers, motorists flout road traffic regulations with impunity.
Because they know there are no law-enforcement officers to keep their behaviour in check, reports from many rural areas say that public transport drivers have literally taken the law into their own hands.
To begin with, some of the vehicles used to carry passengers from one point to another are unsafe because they are not roadworthy.
And in their efforts to make several trips and, in the process make as much money as possible, the drivers, some of whom use open vans, speed regardless of concerns usually expressed by their passengers.
As if this is not bad enough, these drivers are accused of overloading precisely because they pick any passenger they find, usually at undesignated points.
Worse, they may even drive through pedestrianised stretches of the road, wherever these are found, thus endangering lives of pedestrians as well.
Many public transport drivers in rural areas have really become a nuisance, a thorn in the flesh of many road users, both pedestrians and commuters and, to some extent, private motorists.
RTSA should surely not concentrate on enforcing the law on urban roads but should make random patrols and mount checkpoints even in rural areas as well if this lawlessness has to stop.