Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
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telephone numbers and a few basic emergency care centres at hospitals. However, these
emergency care centres are only located at hospitals in urban areas. The lowest level of
emergency care is found in the rural areas, where most facilities are community-based and
provide only service for primary health care.
African Region
Road Safety in Cameroon
Introduction
Cameroon, a country having a total land area of 472,710 square kilometres and a population of
around 22 million faces a serious road safety problem. In the year of 2013 approximately 1,095
road traffic fatalities were reported (World Health Organisation, 2015b). The total road traffic
fatalities might be higher since not all fatalities are reported. The World Health Organization
estimated 6,136 road traffic fatalities for 2013, equivalent to a rate of 27.6 road fatalities per
100,000 people and significantly higher than countries with comparable income levels.
No recent data is available of the total registered vehicles in Cameroon. However, the WHO
report of 2010 mentions that Cameroon has about 443,018 registered vehicles in 2010
indicating a relatively low rate of vehicle ownership. Of the motorized vehicles about forty five
percent are cars and fifty percent are motorized 2- and 3-wheelers. The rest of the total
registered vehicles are heavy trucks, buses and other motorized vehicles.
The World Health Organization report estimates that road crashes cost the country
approximately 1% of its GDP. The data also shows that the reported road traffic deaths stays
relatively constant over the years. However, this might not be realistic since the crash
registration is very poor and unreliable.
Road safety data
In Cameroon, motorcycles and automobile occupants share more or less the same amount of
road users, while pedestrians account for 34% of the total amount of road users. Like more
African countries the working age group (15-45 years) are involved in more crashes with
motorized vehicles than other age groups. This probably has to do with the vast amount of usage
of motorised vehicles on working days.
Pillar 1: Road safety management
A large percentage of the population has not received any formal driver training. Many drivers’
licenses are can be easily obtained and are not always legally valid.
The main problems for the enforcement of laws in Cameroon are the numerous individual
operators, ambiguous laws and lack of transparency in the administration of penalties. Another
major problem in Cameroon is that financial penalties are often inadequate deterrents. Fines for
offences, such as excessive speed, license infringements, or operation of un-roadworthy vehicles