Improving Road Safety
in the OIC Member States
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are often regarded as normal operating expenses by drivers. This is a result that the penalties
are not severe enough to dissuade traffic infringements (Minang, 2014).
Pillar 2: Roads and mobility
Most of the maintenance activities are poorly planned and ineffective in optimizing the life cycle
of road assets. As a result the ineffective maintenance has led to poorly maintained roads. Traffic
volumes are generally low when compared to other middle income countries. Traffic over the
paved network is only 1,099 vehicles per day, against 2,558 in other middle-income countries.
The primary paved road network shows some king of over-engineering with fewer than 300
vehicles per day making use of it. However, the traffic volumes on the unpaved roads justifies
the paving of the road network. Around 36 percent of the unpaved road network in Cameroon
carries more than 300 vehicles per day (Dominguez-Torres & Foster, 2011). The poor condition
of the road network prohibits the easy movement of goods and this is a major barrier for
connecting manufactures and consumers with international markets. This makes Cameroon one
of the least efficient countries when it comes to transportation.
Pedestrians and livestock share the same roads as the motorised vehicles resulting in a constant
road hazard, especially at night. Large logging trucks, as well as other vehicles, travel the roads
after dark. Often these vehicles travel without lights and are frequently broken on the side of the
road or even on the road. With barely any road signs and no road lightning, roads in Cameroon
are dangerous at night. Some parts of the road network in Cameroon contribute to a lot of traffic
accidents. Especially the more complex parts in the road network are prone to a lot of traffic
accidents. One of these parts is the Douala-Yaounde-Bafoussam-Douala triangular road
network. This part of the road network contributes to an average of 100 registered deaths per
month according to the Cameroon Road Safety Foundation (Minang, 2014).
Like a lot of other central African countries, motorised traffic increases during festive and
seasonal periods. According to the Bafia Mobile Gendarmerie Road Safety Unit, road traffic
volumes increase especially during August and December, as do the number of road crashes.
The untarred roads in Cameroon also results in accidents that are caused by the dry and wet
season. During the dry season, road users grapple with excessive dust which causes visibility
problems. In the rainy season road users are sometimes forced to use the wrong lane of the road
because of mud or potholes (CONSIA Consultants, 2013; OSAC Country Council Information,
2014a)
Pillar 3: Vehicles
Vehicles in Cameroon require no inspection for roadworthiness and there are no known applied
vehicle standards. This is one of the primary reasons that there are a lot of non-standard and
unsafe vehicles in use. The use of the poorly maintained vehicles contributes to a high number
of accidents (World Health Organisation, 2015b).
Trucks in Cameroon are poorly maintained. Second-hand trucks are typically overloaded and
travel at excessive speed to obtain maximum revenue from their restricted usage. The