Gendarmerie Intensifies Road Safety Controls

Gen. Laurent Claude Angouan'd visited several checkpoints on highways last Saturday.

Over-speeding, non-utilisation of seat belts, irregular number plates, worn-out tyres, absence of First Aid boxes, overloading and dangerous overtaking, among others, are still recorded as recurring road offences by the National Gendarmerie at road safety checkpoints on some major highways in the country.

The observation was made by the National Gendarmerie official, General Laurent Claude Angouan'd while visiting checkpoints on Saturday March 30, 2013 along some sections of the Yaounde-Douala and Yaounde-Bertoua highways, respectively. The checkpoints were set up to render effective the Gendarmerie's Zero Tolerance "Surveillance-Control and Repression" road safety campaign to reduce the number of accidents and deaths on major highways.

During General Angouan'd's stopover at two checkpoints in Manyaï and Maholu, officers could be seen checking cars for violations of the Highway Code by observing and use of traffic radars. According to sub-officer Ma'a Jean of the Manyaï checkpoint, some 40 km from Yaounde, road users guilty of offences such as over-speeding or irregular number plates paid FCFA 25,000 as fine.

Gen. Angouan'd intervened so often to remind some dissatisfied road users that the repressive phase of the campaign was to safeguard the lives of passengers they were carrying. "Our country needs these citizens to ensure its development," he could be heard sensitising. At the Mekong checkpoint, just a few hundred of metres from the Akonolinga weighing station on the Yaounde Bertoua Highway, General Angouan'd gave tips to watching gendarmerie officers who record same road offences, daily.

Speaking to the press during the exercise, General Angouan'd underscored the success recorded by the road safety campaign in reducing the number of accidents by 36 per cent in 2012 and the awareness created among road users.