Make Roads Safe Africa 2009

1. Make Roads Safe Africa 2009 Tanzania’s Road Safety Programme 2009-2011 Madeni Kipande, Road Safety Unit, Ministry of Infrastructure Development, United Republic of Tanzania

2. Annual road deaths in Tanzania 2001-2008

3. Programme components: • Better management of the road safety effort • Making road users safer (making them behave more safely) • Making our roads safer • Making our vehicles safer

4. Better management The new National Road Safety Policy provides for setting up a Road Safety Board with full-time professional staff and guaranteed funding. It will direct and coordinate the national road safety programme – but responsibility for traffic law enforcement will remain with the Police, and road safety engineering will continue to be done by the road authorities.

5. Better management :Key partners working together Traffic Police: More effective traffic policing could bring down the number of road deaths faster than anything else. Government is seeking development partners to work with the Police on a major capacity-building programme. Road authorities: The Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS) is committed to delivering safer roads - it has a small Safety Unit which is seeking to ‘mainstream’ road safety in the organisation. We must now get the local road authorities to be more active.

6. Better management :A new Driver and Vehicle Examination and Licencing Agency (DVELA) National Road Safety Policy proposes that this new agency will take responsibility for: • Regulation of driver training • Testing & licencing drivers & driving instructors • Setting vehicle fitness standards • Supervising the operation of the mandatory vehicle inspection system • Carrying out roadside vehicle fitness checks with Police • Licencing vehicles ?

7. Making road users behave more safelyNational road safety campaigns The major cause of most road crashes is bad driving. Ignorance of the rules is a factor, but it is mostly because these drivers have an irresponsible attitude to the safety of others. The way to change behaviour is by: Professionally-managed national campaigns combining publicity (TV advertising) with intensive enforcement of traffic law.

8. Making road users behave more safely:Other actions: • Better driver training: official syllabus () Highway Code () Learner Driver’s Manual () • Tougher driving test • Teach children road safety skills (ongoing) • Enforce the traffic laws (inappropriate speed, drink-driving, seat belts) • () alreadypublished or about to be published

9. Making road users behave more safely:Preventing bus drivers from speeding Speeding buses are responsible for the worst crashes (25% of all road deaths are bus passengers). The fitting of speed limiters on buses failed to control speeds because owners tampered with them. Current plan is to use tachographs which record the vehicle speed on a card – a Police officer can read the card at the end of the journey and see whether the vehicle has been speeding.

10. Safer roads Making roads easier to use, self-enforcing, and more forgiving is highly cost-effective. We need: • Safety-conscious design standards (a new Geometric Design Manual will be produced) • Safety audit of new schemes (TANROADS is auditing some of its new schemes) • Treatment of crash ‘hotspots’ (TANROADS is treating some, but the programme needs to be expanded – lack of good crash data makes it harder to identify the ‘hotspots’)

11. Safer vehicles Vehicle defects are a relatively minor cause of crashes (10% ?) but we must remove dangerous vehicles from our roads. We need: • Fitness standards (tough but affordable) • Mandatory vehicle inspection system (BOT project – private firms have been invited to tender) • Random roadside checks (by DVELA inspectors and traffic police) to identify and remove defective vehicles

12. Asante sanaThank you