Road accidents: Cameroon is fast becoming fertile ground

Travelling now in Cameroon, especially by road is the highest scare that one can ever imagine. Even those who don’t believe in God, call on Jesus when a car they are travelling in, mistakenly gets into a pot hole.

Eyebrows still remain raised after the ghastly car accident which occurred on Saturday 15 July 2017 on the Yaounde-Ebolowa High way, leaving five people dead among which there was a CRTV journalist. Their car collided with a heavy duty truck. The collision was so violent that every occupant of the little vehicle gave up the ghost instantly.

A question now sets in; what are really the causes of these accidents? The reasons for the phenomenon are not new to anybody as they are sung every given day. Reckless driving, inexperienced adventurers who do not know the high way code, narrow and rugged roads, driving in a drunken state among others account for the exceeding number of cases we have.

Jean Baptist Bokam with his Gendarmerie team have been pretending to carry out road safety campaigns which are never effective, given that those who stand by the road sides to control over speeding and over loading, do not do their job. It suffices for a dishonest road user to give them some banknotes and they can use the road as they like.

During the 21^st assembly of the Cameroon Road National Council (CONAROUTE) it was revealed that, 3,088 accidents and 1,102 deaths were officially registered in 2016 in Cameroon. It is equally worth noting that, the United Nations classified the 240 km Douala-Yaounde axis in 2014, as one of the deadliest high ways in the world. Construction works on this stretch of road is moving at chameleon’s speed. The Chinese company which was supposed to deliver in 48 months, has used 32 months of the accorded time but the work is still at 40%.