Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
100
10 Case Study: Cameroon
10.1 Introduction
Cameroon, selected as one of the case studies, is a central African country covering nearly
480,000 km2,with a population of more than 23 million people in 2014 and yielding a population
density of 41 persons/km 2 . Slightly more than half the population (52%) live in urban areas
(Laurea, 2012).
Cameroon has an underdeveloped road network comprising approximately 230,000 km of road
of which 4,300 km of paved (Transtat, 2014) and claimed to be relatively well appointed.
However, the majority of this network is underdeveloped and a priority programme is being
implemented to develop a priority network of some 23,000 km. The rural road network in
Cameroon comprises less than 50,000 km of roads, equating to a density of around 100
km/1,000 km 2 of land area which is low by world standards. The country also has a railway
network comprising some 1,000 km of single track rail connecting the south-eastern port of
Douala with the capital city of Yaoundé and the northern city of Ngaoundéré.
Approximately a quarter of the rural population has access to the road network which is
considered to be in a poor condition (Dominguez-Torres & Foster, 2011). The condition of the
country’s classified paved road network is below the level of peer countries, with only 52% of
the classified paved network in good or fair condition. The quality of the roads in Cameroon
restricts the competiveness of the private sector with approximately one third of the companies
identifying roads as a major constraint for doing business (Dominguez-Torres & Foster, 2011;
Laurea, 2012).
Apart from the relatively poor state of the roads, roads are also unsafe mainly due to livestock
and pedestrians on the road, inappropriate speeds and poor driver discipline. Road and traffic
signs are scarce and speed limits are seldom adhered to due to a general lack of enforcement.
On certain routes, the Gendarmerie has intensified enforcement activities related to speeding,
vehicle condition, overloading and other critical offences.
The Department of Transport has published national transport statistics and these reveal that
Cameroon has some 673,895 registered vehicles in 2014, the majority of these (nearly 77%)
being petrol driven (Transtat, 2014). Car ownership is estimated at between 6 and 7 per 1,000
population which equates to between 135,000 and 156,000 cars.
10.2 Road Safety Performance
Overall performance, registration rate mortality estimates
Figure 14 shows the number of injury crashes, injuries and fatalities as registered by the
authorities in Cameroon and reported by the World Bank Country Office (Sidiki Sidibe). These
data reveal a decrease in the number of injury crashes (from 3,458 in 2000 to 2,954 in 2013).
Based on the registered data the trend for all injury types and crashes appears downwards.