3.3.4. Factors
influencing the quality of the road studies
The taking into account of safety in phase of design of the
road infrastructures is subjected to certain constraints which put at evil the
quality of the studies carried out.
· Budgetary restrictions: The taking into account of
safety often imposes an increase in the level of installation of the road
(enlarging of the radii of curvature, reduction of the declivities, indication
and more important safety equipment, etc.), which creates additional costs thus
increasing the financial expenses that the country supports which is most of
the time borrower for the projects, and which return occasion consequently the
less profitable project.
· The level of priority of safety in the road design: One
of the difficulties at present in the realization of the road studies resides
in the terms of reference, because those do not impose in a clear and precise
way technical constraints related to safety at the Technical Research
departments (Study Bureau) and the Companies of realization.
· The dispersion of the made efforts: The intervenants in
the road safety are divided in various sectors, but each one carries out by her
side the fight against the road insecurity, and thus certain actors go
sometimes until being opposed between them by creating problems which harm the
good behavior of the studies. The absence of a structure responsible for the
road safety charged to coordinate the action of the various protagonists raised
previously in the analysis of the organizational device is to be regretted
because of inoperationnality of the inter-ministerial committee set up.
· Negligence of the economic impact of the accidents in
the evaluation of the projects of road infrastructures
It is necessary to rise that at present, the evaluation of the
projects of road infrastructures does not take sufficiently counts of it the
profit which the reduction of the number of accidents could generate on a road.
Indeed, within the framework of the evaluation, this profit should be put in
connection with the cost of the complementary investments to implement to more
guarantee safety, this in order to adopt the most advantageous solution, and
economically most profitable in the long term. It is about a criterion which
could be integrated in a formal way in the appreciation of the road
projects.
On the ground, one belongs to installations generating of the
behaviors at the risk or having consequences on the gravity of the accidents.
These configurations must be proscribed.
The multiplication of the points of conflicts in a crossroads
is one of the examples. One finds this design defect in several crossroads of
Yaoundé. They are insuperable small islands of form mainly triangular
which corresponded to one moment given to an installation, but which was not
adapted to the new circulation terms. These small islands, which authorizes to
practice without «prohibited direction», call into question the
principle of skirting by the line of an obstacle and especially multiply the
points of potential conflicts. This is why this configuration differently
indicated by «Bennett small island» is proscribed in many countries.
One finds this installation with the crossroads EtoaMeki, Coron, Cami-Toyota,
MvogMbi, Ngousso where the left-hand turns are not any not simplified.
It should be noted that new installations, if they allow
raised speeds, can unfortunately induce accidents with the pedestrians,
therefore serious accidents.
Thus the Préfecture exchanger includes/understands it
weaving lanes which can encourage at the velocity emission of crossroads and
the end of which crossings for pedestrians were marked. This configuration of
mixture between characteristics perceived like highway and local life is source
of accidents.
Most interesting information of accidentology is information
which one can locate. The observation of the behaviors is information source on
the non-observance of the rules (in particular that of the indication of
tricolor fires or the STOP). For this purpose, dust (as snow in the
Scandinavian countries) is also useful for us to distinguish spaces circulated
from uncommon spaces in a complex, vast crossroads or in current section of a
large artery.
In the same way, the visit on the ground with the agents
constatateurs proves to be more enriching and makes it possible for example to
detect minor roads which drain a district and whose outlet on the main road is
carried out under bad conditions.
The central police station n°4 evokes the sector of Mvan,
which is logical because we are at the exit of the city, on one of the most
attended arteries. Speeds are increased and the entries and exits of the
perilous and non made-up bordering properties. This axis should imperatively be
the subject of a thorough study of road safety.
At other places, it is the excess of indication which devalues
indication, or rather a bad choice of the mode of priority in crossroads. Thus
in a crossroads lately arranged, it was placed a STOP on the file of the
left-hand turn, concomitantly with a STOP on the minor road. As this STOP is
not respected, because unsuited to this place, they are all the STOP around
which is some devalued, as if one could cross any STOP without risk with
impunity.
Figure11: Example of a
multiplicity of small islands and useless use of a STOP
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