The number of vehicles in Addis Ababa that are equipped with speed limiters is well below 2,000, The Reporter learnt.
Deputy Director General of the Addis Ababa Traffic Management Agency, Berhanu Girma (Engineer), told The Reporter that the fitting of the speed limiter device at the city and federal transport levels has been taken as one of the priority measures towards mitigating traffic related accidents and deaths.
According to Berhanu (Eng.), more than 30,000 vehicles have been equipped with speed limiters nationwide, but it is questionable whether all of them are in good working order. Only 1,700 vehicles in Addis Ababa have so far been equipped with speed limiters through accredited speed limiter installing companies.
The Federal Transport Authority and Addis Ababa Traffic Management Agency issue the licenses provided to companies that install speed limiters, the deputy director general indicated. The federal public office has been rendering the service for almost two years. However, the city traffic management agency joined in the act a few months later.
Berhanu (Eng.) recalled that it has taken time to build the capacity and launch the service at city level. That, in his opinion, is one of the reasons behind the small number of vehicles fitted with the gadgets.
He said the nominal figures of vehicles equipped with the devices should be scrutinized further by running inspections on whether they have really been fitted with the gadgets.
Data indicate that out of 30,000 vehicles that have been equipped with speed limiters nationwide, only 46 percent have used the device properly; in the rest of the cases, the vehicles are either not working or have disconnected the device.
“We do not intend to install speed limiters on all vehicles in the city,” Berhanu said. He said a study identified public transport vehicles and Lorries as vehicles causing the most traffic accidents in the city. He said work is underway to equip these vehicles with speed limiter devices and raised the fitting of Sheger and Anbessa buses with speed limiters as an instance of the effort in that direction.
Addis Ababa Traffic Management Agency and the Federal Transport Authority organized a stakeholder discussion forum at the Friendship Hotel on Thursday, October 7, 2021 on the implementation guideline of speed limiter devices in Addis Ababa.
Participants pointed out that the revised Speed Restriction Directive No. 692/2013 has to be submitted for immediate approval by the relevant body before an effective implementation of the device can be realized.
The directive puts a mandatory condition to fit vehicles that enter the country with speed limiters. Participants pointed out the need to establish a fleet management data center, optimize the use of troubleshooting software, mainstream the speed limit technology and enable its implementation in all regions quickly.
Speeding is one of the major causes of traffic accidents in Ethiopia. A study conducted by the Federal Transport Authority indicates that speeding is associated with the death of 3,585 people between 2012 and 2018.
