Traffic safety diagnostic and application of countermeasures for rural roads in Burkina Faso

The Government of Burkina Faso has recently been conducting important governmental and macro-economic changes, aiming at encouraging the economic growth of the country. In order to maintain this growth, the Government has put in place a transportation program to improve the efficiency and safety of the road network. This paper documents the study carried out in 2000 on the safety improvement of rural roads in Burkina Faso. The primary objectives of the study were to prepare an assessment of traffic safety problems and to propose several countermeasures to reduce the number and severity of collisions on rural roads. To accomplish these objectives, a large sample of rural roads were visited and evaluated; all accident data and important socio-economic variables were collected; and key staff members from various governmental and private agencies were interviewed. The results of the study have shown that traffic safety problems in Burkina Faso are multidimensional, involving inefficient traffic safety management and policy, inadequate road networks, untrained drivers and defective vehicles. Several traffic safety countermeasures have been proposed for immediate, short- and long-term application. The most important countermeasures consist of creating a new institutional framework with which to improve the management of traffic safety and to train the key personnel who will be responsible for implementing traffic safety countermeasures. In the short term, the proposed countermeasures are mainly related to roadway infrastructure improvements and better enforcement tools. In the long term, the proposed countermeasures include the review of current highway traffic laws, their application, the evaluation of countermeasures already in place, and the improvement of driver training.