Rural Road Safety Training Courses in Cambodia completed

Rural road safety is an important component of the Technical Assistance for Sustainable Assets for Agriculture Markets, Business and Trade (SAAMBAT) Project in Cambodia. This July (2024), as the Road Safety Expert for this project, I completed the training Safe Rural Road Design, assisted by training experts Sakony Pen and Sokhoeurn Mour with the organizational support by Sokmey Kruy under the leadership of Mark Thriscutt (TL).

Over 130 management and engineering staff of the Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) and the Provincial Departments of Rural Development got acquainted with Safe System Design, key principles and details of safe rural road design. All this based on the Manual for Safe Rural Road Design that I have prepared and which is aimed to become the standard document for the MRD.

During an intensive three days course I shared my know-how of safe road design by means of practical examples and improvement options for Cambodia’s rural roads. Participants from all 25 provinces attended with great enthusiasm during four different events in Kampong Cham, Siem Reap, Battambang and Kampot provincial capitals.

Corbulo tunnel in N434 Regional Road between highways A4 and A44 near Leiden open to traffic after 12 years of planning, design and construction

The Corbulo tunnel near Leiden (Netherlands) has been open to traffic since the morning of Saturday July 5, 2024. The 2.5-kilometer-long tunnel provides a better connection to and from the Leiden region. 

The brand-new tunnel is part of the N434, the new provincial road that connects the A4 and A44 highways through split-level interchanges Ommedijk and Hofvliet (picture below).

New report shows half of road deaths in the EU occur on rural roads

A recent report published by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) shows that over 50% of fatal road accidents occur on rural roads. The report (“Reducing Road Deaths on Rural Roads , PIN Flash Report 46 of March 2024) further states that:

“Rural roads can be dangerous, compared to other road types.  They often lack central and side barriers and allow for large speed and weight differences between the vehicles that use them, from lorries to vulnerable cyclists as well as pedestrians.   Single-vehicle crashes, where a fatigued driver misjudges a turn and runs off the road, are common.  Head-on collisions frequently occur, and are often lethal.”

Webinar April 2024 – ICTCT: Research methods and tools in traffic psychology

On 26 April 2024, ICTCT organizes a webinar ‘Research methods and tools in traffic psychology’. The honoured speaker is Dick de Waard, Professor of Traffic Psychology at the University of Groningen, Netherlands.

About the webinar:

While the methods and tools used in research in traffic psychology have evolved, there are also older techniques that are still in use.

Completion of Consultancy Services for Road Safety Audit, Capacity Building and Data Collection for the Dar Es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System Project – Phase 2

My contract to provide the Road Safety Services for Dar Es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit Phase II was successfully fulfilled this month, December 2023 with the approval by the Client (Tanzania National Roads Agency, TANROADS) of my final report. As the Team Leader, assigned by Intercontinental Consultants & Technocrats Pr. Ltd., I received a heartening appreciation mail.

     Europeans ignore traffic rules en masse, but others in particular exhibit aggressive or dangerous behavior

In the recent Completion Meeting for my Bus Rapid Transit Road Safety Audit, one of the engineers told me about road user behaviour in Dar Es Salaam: “Road users here do not know how to behave, they ignore pedestrians, priority rules at junctions and speed limits. It is not like in Europe, where everybody respects the traffic rules”. Unfortunately, the truth is different, as is demonstrated in the article I had found one day earlier in this Dutch newspaper.

Found on 09-11-23, in “Algemeen Dagblad”

Europeans ignore the traffic rules en masse. Dutch, Belgians, French and Spaniards: all Europeans drive through red lights on a large scale, cycle on the sidewalk and park in a disabled space. And almost all of us think that we are doing fine ourselves and that others in particular are exhibiting aggressive or dangerous behavior. More than nine in ten Europeans believe that 'other road users take too much risk'.