AA of Kenya Director General David Njoroge
The Kenyan Government is stepping up efforts to reduce the number of deaths on the country’s roads with the launch of a National Road Safety Council and Road Survey Assessment Programme (RSAP).
The RSAP has been set up with assistance from the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), which the FIA Foundation supports. The aim will be to gather data to pinpoint danger areas and help plan the introduction of new safety measures. The Kenyan Government wants to improve its road safety auditing and is focusing on making its roads safe for non-motorised transport and vulnerable road users.
In a speech to launch the scheme, Kenyan Transport Minister Chirau Mwakwere said: “More than one million people are killed on the roads in developing countries every year and tens of millions are injured, a toll set to double by 2030. This is a great challenge to a country like Kenya, hence the need to set up preventative measures.”
AA of Kenya Director General David Njoroge and Africa representative on the Commission for Global Road Safety said that in Kenya eight families lose a member every day with thousands of others suffering due to road injuries.
He stressed that to curb the level of deaths and injuries on the roads there is a need to design and build safer roads and vehicles and to provide pedestrians – particularly children – with safer road infrastructure. A sustainable action plan with measurable targets over a defined time period is also needed, he added.
“The solutions to road traffic injuries are always almost the same regardless of social differences between countries or regions,” he said. “First securing political recognition of the problem and building that capacity within a country to deal with it is needed.”
Mr. Njoroge said that the iRAP Kenya project will cover approximately 2,600 km of road network across the country in seven months. A second phase of the project will involve the implementation of counter measures.
iRAP is currently active worldwide, with Kenya following South Africa the second country in Africa, to benefit from the programme. iRAP targets high risk roads where large numbers of people are killed and injured to identify affordable programmes of safety engineering to reduce the numbers of road crashes.