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Published: August 7th 2007
As part of my short term placement at the National Road Safety Coordination Office, based in Addis Ababa, I was taken to Debre Zeyit (Bishoftuu) to observe the organisation of the speed project that Sesibe, one of my colleagues is responsible for running. The project works with the Traffic Police to enforce speed limits along the Southern route from Addis to Awasa - which is a road with a high crash record (see my previous diary - Travels between Robe and Addis Ababa (3)). We set off at 9.30, a mere 30 minutes later than planned, and the first stop was to visit the site of a fatal crash on the previous day. The Traffic Police, who we had collected on the way, explained what had happened: the suggested cause of the crash, in which two people were killed instantly, was speed.
We continued to Dukam where the radar was set up. The speed limit is 35km per hour for all vehicles. Sebsibe works closely with the Police - he records the speeds of vehicles and if they are over the limit, he radios to the Police Officer further down the road, telling him the recorded speed. The Officer then
issues a warning to the driver. If they are substantially over the limit, a penalty issued. The fine, of 240 birr (minimum) is seen as an effective level to deter drivers.
We then moved to a different site, on the highway beyond Debre Zeyit.
It was very impressive to see the cooperation between the two organisations. The pilot project on this stretch of road has been reported to reduce the number of violators from 40 - 50% down to 15%. Unfortunately there is very little equipment - the Police had a further 4 radar guns, but they were all reported to have broken.
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Nasir
non-member comment
Radar
I am very happy to see the Radar is being enforced for the drivers in Ethiopia. I used to take those roads myself and I witnessed many crashes due to speeding and so forth. I would like to thank any one trying to make this happen