Road safety in Africa impacted by increasing motorisation

Date: 25/8/2011

The safety of African roads is being negatively affected by increasing motorisation paired with a lack of funding for safety measures, according to one expert.

Head of International and Public Affairs for the FIA Foundation Avi Silverman claims that in countries such as Kenya, safety precautions for new roads are "lacking."

He highlights that while motorisation in the nation may be low in comparison to European countries, the level is increasing - and so is the number of casualties.

"Lots of countries have national road safety councils and have road safety plans and programmes, but often there isn't capacity, there isn't funding for a lot of the work that's needed," Mr Silverman comments, adding that the UN's Decade of Action for Road Safety is hoping to tackle this, particularly in Africa's developing countries.

Currently, TRL is working on a major national road safety project in Kenya. Following a comprehensive multi-sector review of road safety activity and the drawing up of an extensive action plan, a number of multi-sector demonstration projects and some major programs of training have been developed. The planned training programs include significant road safety audit training for road designers in the country.

Posted by Sarah Bailey