Road safety: ONASER ‘flashes’ and raises awareness about Bobo

Bobo-Dioulasso: The National Road Safety Office (ONASER) organized awareness sessions on road safety during National Culture Week (SNC). This campaign aims to reduce accidents on the roads during this busy period. The National Road Safety Office (ONASER) intends to secure users during National Culture Week (SNC). To this end, it has initiated several activities to raise public awareness about wearing seat belts, limiting speeds in urban areas and wearing helmets. ONASER runs a stand at the SNC craft and trade fair for this purpose. In addition to the stand, ONASER teams were deployed on main roads to flash vehicles, not to make them pay speeding tickets, but to make them aware of road traffic rules. Motorists are made aware of the speed limit in built-up areas and the wearing of seat belts. Motorcyclists, for their part, have also been made aware of the speed limit and the wearing of helmets. For the police lieutenant, Amadé Porgho, team leader of awareness raising on the wearing of seat belts, speed l imits in built-up areas and the wearing of helmets that we put on Boulevard Charles de Gaulle, these are the owners of two-wheeled vehicles who are most likely to disregard traffic rules. 'It is not four-wheeled vehicles that cause the most concern in terms of Bobo traffic. The difficulty lies with two-wheeled vehicles where we see the greatest lack of wearing helmets and speed limits in town. Also this category does not respect the number of places indicated for transporting people. This poses enormous problems,' suggested Amadé Porgho. For him, the presence of ONASER on the roads during this SNC where there is a lot of traffic on the roads, is to make users aware of the need to wear seat belts, to limit speed in built-up areas or to wear helmets. He urged users to respect his instructions to save their lives and those of others. This awareness campaign is appreciated by users. For Arsène Millogo, this type of initiative should be encouraged, "It's a great campaign and I think it will help reduce damage and make people aware of the danger they run when they drive without helmets. This awareness should be encouraged so that the Burkinabè is safe in traffic,' he stressed. According to ONASER figures, Burkina Faso has recorded an average of 22,786 cases of traffic accidents per year over the last five years. These accidents caused 1,081 deaths and more than 14,525 injuries. Failure to wear helmets and seat belts, speed or ignorance of the Highway Code are the main causes of these numerous cases of accidents. The mission of the National Road Safety Office is to promote road safety, improve the operating conditions of the road network and the fluidity of road traffic. Source: Burkina Information Agency