23,500 people die in road accidents in 5 years

Since 2010, an average of twelve people died daily due to road accidents on Cameroon highways, with about half the number being killed along the Yaounde-Douala highway.

On a global scale, a recent report made public on November 10, says 60% of the total deaths occur along the ‘triangle of death’ which consists of the roads linking Yaounde, Douala directly and Bamenda via Bafoussam.

Going by the report made public in Douala during the commemoration of the first world day dedicated to communication on the involvement of the private sector in the improvement of road safety, the same accidents caused the state financial losses estimated at some 100bilion FCFA.

The number of deaths makes nonsense of Cameroon’s engagement in 2011 to, within ten years; downsize the number of yearly deaths to about 600. Going by the recent report, the current death toll stands at 4,700 a year.

The report was presented by the Director of the Safe Way Right Way foundation, Cécile Eyike who says the objective of the observance day is to bring on board a huge number of companies in the fight for road safety and to share best practices and principles on respect of rules and measures taken by government and donor organizations in favour of road safety.

Safe Way Right Way foundation is a coalition of private companies involved in road safety campaign. Eyike says the commemoration of such a day every year provides a platform for the contribution of ideas for sustainable actions for road safety- ideas she says could change habits which usually cause deadly road accidents.

The event, chaired by the Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Transport, Mefire Oumarou ended with several proposed measures, such as the creation of a Safe Way Right Way surveillance unit, equipped with a GPS for real-time observation of traffic; the creation of a digital data-base for information sharing, the regular organization of sensitization campaigns in cities among others.