By Alusine Fullah
In an effort to enhance service delivery to reflect global priorities as enshrined in the UN Decade Action (2011-2012), which regulate greater commitment to road safety management. The SLRSA is responsible for testing and licensing all vehicles and drivers in Sierra Leone; road safety and employs traffic wardens to assist the traffic police in controlling traffic and enforcing traffic and parking regulations; planning of public transport routes in Freetown. Under the current legislation, the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority is responsible for designating public transport routes as well as set fare levels. Secrecy
Section 35 of the Road Traffic Regulations 2011 places the responsibility on the SLRSA to license all public transport in Sierra Leone. The Authority is also responsible under section 41 of the same Statutory Instrument (SI) to designate the various routes allocated to operators as well as the amount they should charge for the various stages along the routes.
Road safety has been identified as a key aspect of rural access and mobility development in Sierra Leone. Having established a policy to reduce the burden of deaths and disabilities through road traffic crashes in the country, the Government of Sierra Leone was seeking to ensure that appropriate strategies are identified and applied to address road safety needs, based on analytical methods. To achieve this objective, a comprehensive road traffic crash database has been established to capture crash data and to provide a better understanding of the road safety needs so that appropriate interventions can be applied. This is a fundamental aspect for reliable and effective road safety decision making.
Apart from the foregoing, the launch of Crash Response Fund by SLRSA was a good move in order to address the many challenges face by victims of roads traffic in the country under the leadership of Reverend Smart K. Senesie.
Also, As part of efforts to reduce road traffic, the Sierra Leone Safety Authority has engaged strategic stakeholders in traffic management to understand professional road safety in the country’s major roads to identify problems areas and come up with recommendations.
