What road traffic standards for Haiti?

Marc Donald Saint-Ange

Every year, nearly one (1) million and three (3) thousand people die because of road traffic accidents in the world, more than half of whom are neither drivers nor passengers of a car.

This represents more than 3,000 deaths per day. Nearly 50 million people survive accidents that cause disabling injuries. 90% of road deaths occur in low-income countries. (Global Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020). In Haiti, according to the Office Assurance des Véhicules Contre Tiers (OAVCT), between 2000 and 2010, 45,780 road accidents at the national level were recorded. This gives an average of 4,500 accidents per year for a population of 11 million inhabitants (Haitilibre.com). 29,583 accidents occurred in urban areas and 16,200 in rural areas. Faced with this increasingly worrying situation at the country level, what is the response of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)? Why do road accidents remain a public health problem in Haiti? How can we accept in a country an annual number of road accidents of 4,500 to 5,000 deaths for a population of 11 million inhabitants compared to 3,461 in France in 2015 for a population of 68 million? What are the investments of the Haitian government for road safety? What about the quality of the construction of our roads? The ISO 39001 standard for Road Safety Management Systems – Requirements and recommendations for good practice was published in 2012 by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This standard is intended to be a concrete tool for public authorities, companies, and all organizations around the world that are concerned with limiting the number of deaths and injuries resulting from road accidents. ISO 39001 sets out the most stringent requirements for various aspects of road safety, including speed, vehicle condition and driver vigilance. This international expertise is a major asset and is widely regarded as an important contribution to the Decade of Action for Road Safety launched by the United Nations (UN) in 2011. Just as it is imperative for governments at the international level to commit to a series of concrete and achievable measures by setting ambitious targets for reducing road accidents, it is therefore also necessary for the Haitian authorities to take seriously the extent of this national scourge that is eating away at the health of national life. “ISO 39001 will help government agencies and private sector stakeholders by providing a structured and holistic approach to road safety that complements existing programs and regulations. It is based on the process approach that has proven itself with ISO standards whose success has been confirmed as ISO 9001 for quality management. (ISO 39001). Causes of road accidents in Haiti Apart from the most frequent cases of accidents handled by the OVACT offices relating to uncontrollable bad habits of speeding, lack of use of seat belts, or the use of telephones, the quality of the road itself apart from electricity poles, the crossing of animals,  mounds of earth extracted from pipes and put on the roads as well as piles of rubbish contribute greatly to the increase in road accidents. In Haiti, there is no space for pedestrians on the roads, the sidewalks are practically non-existent during the hours of day when the merchants occupy a large part of the work. The community police are very weak, there are some in the municipality of Delmas but not for the others. The phenomenon of motorcycles is making the situation worse. Unlike the new car drivers who scatter around the Champ-de-Mars, motorcyclists, we don’t know what schools they are trained from. Unfortunately, there are no vehicle inspections in Haiti. The State could have collected a lot of money by setting up such a service. Large water trucks in particular have caused a lot of road accidents. We cannot forget the one who left with many people, motorcycles and even vans in front of Haiti’s national television a few years ago. People are totally buried in nothing when they cross the streets, there is an incredible lack of education among the population. The absence of traffic lights at intersections further increases accidents. All this is possible thanks to the ignorance of the State. Effective actions to reduce road traffic in Haiti Experience shows that the integration of road safety features into land use planning and city and transport planning, the design of safer roads and mandatory independent road safety audits for new construction sites, the improvement of vehicle safety features, the improvement of the road safety features of the city of Haiti, the development of road safety systems, the development of road safety features, the implementation of road safety features, the implementation of road safety features, the integration of road safety features, the development of road safety features  The promotion of public transport, effective police speed enforcement and traffic calming measures, the adoption and implementation of legislation making the use of seat belts and helmets compulsory for motorcyclists and the use of child restraints are producing enormous results. Public awareness campaigns are also crucial to support enforcement, as they raise awareness of the risks and penalties for violations. New impetus for road safety Road safety is not a new concern for Haiti, but over the past decade, awareness raising and enforcement activities at the national level have not gained significant momentum. All this leads us to ask: What public policy on road safety? What prevents everyone from respecting the lanes, the one-way streets, regardless of their status? What takes care of the quality and maintenance of roads, electricity poles that often caused serious problems? Where has the secretariat of state for public security gone? The international expertise of the ISO 39001 standard This new government can well make road safety a national policy issue, which advocates the application of specific measures and advocates the strengthening of collaboration between interested parties and stakeholders. Collaborative mechanisms must be put in place to bring together the main actors concerned in national life, donors, intervention actors and civil society, and must have a financing mechanism to invest and act more quickly. This 2030 vision of an emerging Haiti can be an opportunity to foster political and financial commitment, both at the national and municipal levels in the implementation of the ISO 39001 standard. This international expertise can be adapted to any type of company. To live this dream of Haiti 2030, multisectoral partnerships must be encouraged and the identification of skills with the capacity required to develop national road safety strategies, plans and targets, based on operations, evidence-based approaches to decision-making and countermeasures, and monitoring their implementation and results.