Improving road safety knowledge in Africa through crowdsourcing. The African Road Safety Observatory

Africa is the worst performing continent in road safety: the fatality rate, 26.6 per 100.000 inhabitants, is almost three times that of Europe's and fatalities per capita are projected to double from 2015 to 2030 (WHO, 2015). This is mainly due to the fact that Emerging Economies are experiencing increases in traffic, for which their traffic systems are not sufficiently prepared. On one hand, there is a significant demand for data and knowledge to be used for road safety-related decision making. On the other hand, there is a substantial lack of a reliable and detailed knowledge on road casualties in terms of the number of road accidents and fatalities occurring and, on the factors, leading to road accidents or affecting their consequences. When official data are poor or missing these could be integrated with other sources. The objective of this paper is to describe the African Road Safety Observatory (African RSO), a participative web portal developed in the field of the "SaferAfrica-Innovating dialogue and problems appraisal for a safer Africa" project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program. The African RSO combines traditional functions of analyzing and sharing road safety performance data and provide knowledge and information, with the more innovative ones: a Dialogue Platform and the crowdsourcing tool. The Dialogue Platform is dedicated to experts and stakeholders and aims at encouraging and facilitating a constructive engagement and dialogue on road safety in Africa, producing knowledge to inspire road safety funding, policies and interventions in Africa and providing recommendations to update the African Road Safety Action Plan and the African Road Safety Charter. The crowdsourcing tool allows African citizens to report and highlight road safety needs, to share opinions as well as to discuss solutions in their own Countries

Influence of psychological determinants on bus drivers’ risky behaviour and road traffic crashes along Yaounde-Douala highway Cameroon

Road traffic crashes (RTCs) are a significant cause of injury and mortality in Cameroon. Psychological factors are considered as determinants of risky driving behaviour which relate to road crash involvement. Previous researches have studied the association between psychological determinants and risky driving behaviour focusing on some psychological factors in developed countries. Very little has been done in developing countries in this regard and specifically, no known study has assessed the relationship between psychological determinants and risky driving behaviour among bus drivers in Cameroon. This cross-sectional descriptive and analytic study was conducted on 201 bus drivers. Structured questionnaires were administered to the study participants consisting of variables on demographics, psychological determinants, risky driving behaviour, and road crash involvement. Multiple regression analysis of the data collected depicted that, psychological determinants were predictive factors of risky driving behaviour. Social norms others acceptability of unsafe driving behaviour (SNOA) and risk awareness were significant predictors of risky driving behaviour. The results from binary logistic regression analysis revealed that risky driving behaviour is a high predictor of road crash involvement among bus drivers in Cameroon. Among the behavioural factors considered, violations and sleepiness were significant predictors of road crash involvement. The findings from this study on the association of psychological determinants and risky driving behaviour as it relates to road crash involvement are relevant in the development of safety intervention programs and policies