Road accidents in Chad: 10 bitter observations – Toumaï Actu

"Vingt personnes ont trouvé la mort et plusieurs autres blessées dans un accident de la route survenu vendredi matin dans une localité du centre tchadien, a indiqué à Anadolu la ministre tchadienne des Transports et de la sécurité routière, Fatima Goukouni Weddeye."
Source : Tchad: 20 morts et plusieurs blessés dans un accident de la route

As you already know, 20 of our compatriots died and 9 others were injured following a traffic accident that occurred on January 27, 2023 between Oum-Hadjer and Abéché. A bus carrying passengers from N’Djamena bound for Abéché collided with a jumbo jet parked on the side of the road. Unfortunately, this accident is just one accident too many.

Chronology of events

• On January 22, 2023, just a few days before this tragedy, another bus collided with a heavy truck on the Bongor – Guelendeng axis and left 5 dead and several injured;
• In December 2022, a bus coming from Sarh ran over a motorcyclist and overturned near Goré, injuring several people, without causing any deaths, fortunately;
• In October 2022, a bus accident on the Kélo – Eré axis left 3 dead and several injured;
• In July 2022, a bus had an accident on the Bolong – Mongo axis and caused at least 2 deaths and several injuries;
• In February 2022, two buses collided between Mangalmé and Oum-Hadjer and left 33 dead and around 50 injured.

Do you see the number of deaths from bus accidents, just for the year 2022? And there are certainly many other accidents that I don’t know about. And the authorities are well aware of the situation. According to the Ministry of Transport, an average of 2,650 Chadians die each year because of road accidents (2022). In addition to the loss of human life, these accidents cause Chad to lose nearly 72 billion of our francs per yearaccording to the same source.

Fear

Road accidents have become a real problem. Any passenger who travels by bus, especially from Abéché to N’Djamena or vice versa, fears his life until he reaches his destination. These parents are as worried as he is.

The “flying” lyrics

Each time a road accident occurs, the authorities, starting with the President of the Republic, issue a press release to regret the facts and offer condolences to the bereaved families. And at the bottom of the press release, they usually talk about the investigations that are going to be opened, the measures that are going to be taken and so on. Following the last accident, for example, the President of the Transition promised “take strong measures to limit these repetitive tragedies”. The same promise was made a year ago, after the accident on February 27, 2022. “The Ministry in charge of transport must take all of its responsibilities in this regard to enforce the traffic rules that save” he had indicated.

Speaking of the Ministry in charge of Land Transport and Road Safety, the Minister made a press release in which she reminded road users to respect the texts in force and indicated that “Measures will be taken against offenders”. Same speech from a year ago.

In his remarks of February 2022, the President of Transition had indicated that “the road continues to kill in our country because of the irresponsible behavior and other violations on the public highway”. And she continues to kill, unfortunately. I also wonder what concrete measures have been taken following the last accident?

My observation

I have just made a trip to Cameroon. I arrived as far as Yaoundé, the mountainous city with red soil. I assure you that I traveled in complete safety and in real comfort. Comparison is not right but I’m talking to you here about what I noticed during my trip:

1. Travel agencies are very well organized, it looks like an airport: luggage is labeled;
2. The drivers are very well dressed, they look like pilots;
3. The roads are wide and in very good condition it looks like we’re driving on tiles;
4. The drivers are very disciplined: they fasten seat belts and ask passengers to do the same; they drive at a really limited speed, nearly constant; it stops regularly to allow those in need to relieve themselves. I don’t have a driver handling a phone or picking up a call;
5. The driver has a copy of the list of all passengers, with their contacts and destinations. Arrived in a place, the bus stops and the conveyor calls the passenger who must get off. It wakes him up if he is sleeping;
6. No passenger remained on the outward journey of the bus (Koursi nouss)
7. Special agents are placed on the road and control the speed at which the bus travels. In the event of speeding, the agent signals to the next checkpoint and the bus will be stopped and the driver amended;
8. Arrived in a village halfway, another driver takes over to get passengers to their destination.

I told you about 10 observations on the title of my article. Here are the 8. The other 2 are on the text.