The Haile Garment, Bole Bulbula and Gurd Shola areas are reported as the most prominent for traffic accidents, according to a three years study conducted by Bloomberg Initiative for global road safety. According to Meron Getachew, an expert at Bloomberg, 212 deaths due to traffic accidents have been recorded in the capital, in the past six months. Men have been victims of unfortunate circumstances taking 78pc while 47pc are from the age of 20-49. Officials from the Addis Abeba Traffic Management Agency said integrating transport with land use development has proved to be difficult contributing to congestion and traffic accidents during the general assembly held at the Inter-Luxury Hotel last week. There are 703,143 drivers registered in the capital. According to Kibebew Mideksa, head of the Agency, there have been 575,288 violations where 8,188 drivers have received penalties in the past five months. Lack of coordination between transport authorities, lack of proper parking terminals, population growth, and poor transport networks have contributed to the escalating traffic accidents, according to Kibebew. The UN projects the country’s population to increase up to 310 million by 2050, and most of this growth is expected to occur in Addis Abeba, where urbanization is rapidly taking place. A steady influx of people also puts tremendous pressure on cities and their transport systems. Facilities of sidewalks tend to be inadequate and substandard. Mitiku Asmare, head of Addis Abeba Transport Bureau, disclosed that they will focus on improving pavement and drainage, developing traffic management measures, upgrading sidewalks, and taking parking management measures.
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