A senior Bulawayo police officer died on the spot together with his wife when a vehicle they were travelling in was involved in a head-on collision with a haulage truck near St Luke’s Hospital along the Victoria Falls-Bulawayo road in Lupane Friday night.

Police spokesperson for Matabeleland North, Chief Inspector Siphiwe Makonese confirmed the tragic incident but could not give further detail.

Some motorists who witnessed the incident said Assistant Inspector Mthokozisi Sibanda, stationed at Drill Hall’s police recruiting department, was heading towards Bulawayo when the accident occurred.

They said Sibanda, who two months ago also lost his seven year old son, encroached onto the lane of oncoming traffic as he tried to avoid hitting a herd of cattle that had strayed onto the highway.

“We arrived at the scene when the accident had just happened just a few kilometres from Kenmaur. Both the driver and passenger were already dead and stuck in the Honda Fit car. We managed to inform police who attended to the scene,” said a motorist who was driving from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls.

The mangled car landed on the side of the road while the haulage truck had also veered off the road and stopped on the other side of the road.

Concerned motorists appealed to government to quickly erect a fence on either side of the highway to keep livestock and wild animals off the road as this has led to continued loss of life through road accidents.

Motorists said driving at night along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road was a death trap because of the animals, as villagers along the highway are not used to penning their livestock, especially between the Tyce Hurst and Insuza stretch and between Phulula and Lupane.

The road stretch between Halfway and Victoria Falls is also infested with wild animals such as elephants, buffaloes, wild dogs and hyenas mostly, which patrol around at night as the area is within the Hwange and Zambezi national parks.