Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
106
 Protection Programs of the National Road Heritage;
 Programs for prevention and road safety;
 Road Management Programs;
 Recovery operations and organisation of the streets.
In addition to the Road Fund, there are funds for dedicated road safety improvement projects,
generally as part of major rehabilitation projects. Also organisations such as the Gendarmerie
and Police have resources dedicated to road safety, particularly aimed at enforcement of critical
offences and traffic management. NGO’s dedicated to road safety (such as SECUROUTE) secure
funding from external sources and apply these to road safety projects aimed at increasing road
safety awareness through campaigns and training at all levels of society (primary schools to
adults).
There is some consensus that the legal framework intended to support effective road safety
management is inadequate. Certain sectors of the transport industry, namely transport
operators, taxis (and especially motorcycle taxis), driver training schools, roadworthy centres
etc. are not well regulated and the permitting and licensing systems (drivers and vehicles)
cannot be effectively administered or enforced. Ineffective controls and management systems
are open to corruption and maladministration.
The management functions relating to monitoring, evaluation, research are essentially ad-hoc
functions within the current structure with no specific party have an assigned responsibility.
The Ministry of Public Works, through its National High School of Public Works, has some
indirect programmes related to supporting research into specifically the economic costs of road
safety. However, as yet there is no structural place for these functions. A key problem related to
this is the lack of adequate supporting road safety data. Furthermore, there is a clear need to
develop capacity to support these functions. In the area of road safety data management, initial
programmes will be based on collaboration with the crash data project being led by the
University of Rome. These will facilitate technology transfer and capacity building with respect
to monitoring and evaluation and will aim to also ensure the sustainability of the future road
crash data centre.
Promotion is another function which appears to be largely an ad-hoc activity with each
department and is restricted to programmes aimed at the general public. To a large extent
promotion seems to be a core task of organisations such as Coaliroute and Pool TPV and Safe
Right of Way (coalition of private enterprises) and a secondary task of the government
departments with little or no co-ordination between the organisations.
Road safety strategy
The most recent strategy dealing with road safety is the nationally adopted strategy
"Development of a National Strategy for road safety” (Elaboration d'une Stratégie Nationale de
Prévention et de Sécurité Routières) which set out an action plan for the period 2009-2014.