A total of 3,201 deaths due to road accidents were recorded during the year 2022, a figure down by 6.84%, the director of the National Road Safety Agency (NARSA), Benacer Boulaajoul, announced on Tuesday. citing provisional statistics.
During a meeting on “road safety and NARSA services”, organized by the Committee on Infrastructure, Energy, Mines and the Environment at the House of Representatives, in the presence of the Minister of Transport and of logistics, Mohammed Abdeljalil, the director of NARSA pointed out that the total number of injury accidents during the year 2022 amounted to 113,740, a decrease of 1.53%, while the number of injuries severe and mild decreased by 5.22% and 1.07%, respectively.
Boulaajoul specified that serious accidents are decreasing despite the increase in the number of accidents, noting that the ratio of fatalities per 100,000 vehicles has fallen from 529 in 1971 to 75 in 2022, indicating that the lack of road safety, having a cost high economic and social cost, in 2019 cost about 1.69% of GDP, or 19.5 billion dirhams.
He further affirmed that the institutional management of road safety began in Morocco in 1977 and that the Kingdom was one of the few countries to have set up a National Committee for the Prevention of Traffic Accidents, recalling , in this sense, the adoption of the first national road safety strategy for the period 2004-2013 and the first integrated emergency plan, in addition to the new national strategy 2017-2026 and the first five-year plan 2017-2021.
The strategy aims to reduce the death rate by 50% in 2026, or less than 1,900 deaths, by targeting pedestrians, mopeds (two or three wheels), accidents involving a single vehicle, children under 14 and transport professionals, through road safety management, road safety, training, awareness-raising, surveillance and penalties, as well as vehicle insurance and assistance to victims of road accidents.
After emphasizing that the improvement of behavioral indicators affects road indicators, Boulaajoul spoke of the importance of road safety education and training for schoolchildren.
For his part, the Minister of Transport and Logistics indicated that after three years of activity of NARSA, the results recorded show a drop in the number of accidents, relying on structural plans that meet scientific standards as well as as well as on the various issues of the national road safety strategy.
After stressing the importance of the national road safety strategy (2017-2026), Abdeljalil emphasized the need to establish a progress report on the strategy “to identify the difficulties encountered, by involving all the stakeholders”. The Minister also underlined that road safety is of great importance in the government’s program, noting the importance of strengthening the roles of regional committees in terms of road control, financing black spot development works in order to improve road safety indicators.
For their part, the parliamentarians welcomed the action report of NARSA as well as the institutional process that accompanied the development of the national road safety strategy and the improvement of the behavior of road users.
They also underlined the necessity of educating the rising generations on road safety and respect for the Highway Code, emphasizing the role of the media in this context.