Speed is the deadliest quiet act on West African roads. Every day, across Liberia 🇱🇷, Sierra Leone 🇸🇱, Guinea 🇬🇳, and Côte d’Ivoire 🇨🇮, drivers exceed posted speed limits without consequence—because there is rarely anyone, or anything, there to stop them. As pedestrians are struck, passengers thrown from vehicles, and children killed while crossing the road, one simple truth holds firm: speeding is predictable, preventable, and deeply neglected.

Under the UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021–2030), Target 6 demands that countries halve the number of vehicles exceeding speed limits and reduce speed-related injuries and deaths. It’s a pragmatic target, backed by strong global evidence: even a 5% reduction in average speeds can cut road deaths by up to 30%. But in the Mano River Union (MRU), this life-saving goal is being treated as optional.

Of the four MRU countries, only Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone have enacted national speed limits along urban and rural corridors, with Côte d’Ivoire setting a 60 km/h limit in cities and 120 km/h on motorways, and Sierra Leone implementing slightly lower thresholds. Liberia has legal speed limits as well—40 km/h in urban zones—but lacks any national target to reduce speeding. Guinea, alarmingly, has no consistent national speed regulations or defined speed thresholds, making enforcement largely theoretical.

Even where legal limits exist, enforcement remains the Achilles’ heel. Most MRU countries still rely on manual policing, which is inconsistent, underfunded, and vulnerable to corruption. Automated enforcement, such as speed cameras, is almost non-existent—despite global evidence showing that even a single speed camera at a high-risk intersection can reduce fatal crashes by over 50%.

Local governments, too, are powerless. None of the four MRU countries empower local authorities to modify speed limits around high-risk zones such as schools, hospitals, or markets. This top-down rigidity ignores the local context, where children often walk alongside fast-moving vehicles and unmarked crossings are common. The issue is not technical complexity—it is political will. Speed enforcement is one of the most cost-effective road safety interventions. But governments across the region have failed to integrate enforcement into infrastructure planning, budgeting, or public safety strategy. Donor-funded Road projects come and go, but speed management remains untouched. Ministries of Transport and police agencies acknowledge the problem, but without cross-sectoral mandates, legislation, or investment, nothing changes.

This is not just a technical oversight—it is a moral failure of governance. Governments know the statistics. They know that speed kills. They know that road crashes are a leading cause of death for young people in their countries. And yet they allow vehicles to fly down unpoliced highways, across congested neighbourhoods, and past vulnerable pedestrians—unchecked and unaccountable.
If MRU governments need a reason to act, here it is: every functional speed camera at a recognized high-risk location is a life-saving intervention. Not a symbolic gesture. Not a luxury. A proven, data-backed shield against road deaths. Countries like Kenya, Rwanda, and South Africa have begun to invest in such systems—with results.
But the MRU countries have not. And until they do, they are sending a dangerous signal: that lives lost to speeding are an acceptable cost of doing nothing.

The path forward is not abstract. RSAI urges MRU governments to:

• Pass national legislation that mandates speed reduction targets and empowers local authorities to enforce and modify limits.
• Deploy automated enforcement tools, including fixed and mobile speed cameras, especially in school zones and intersections.
• Incorporate speed design features such as traffic-calming humps, pedestrian crossings, and lane narrowing into new and existing roads.
• Launch public education campaigns about the deadly link between speed and fatal crashes.
• Allocate dedicated funding for speed enforcement in national road safety budgets.

Speed is a Choice—So is Silence

Every vehicle that travels too fast on an MRU road does so with the silent permission of the state. It is time to revoke that permission.

Target 6 is not about technology—it’s about leadership. Governments cannot claim to be serious about road safety while ignoring speeding, the most visible and deadly behavior on their roads. Until they act decisively, every crash caused by excess speed is a policy failure—and a preventable death.

Speeding is not just a driver's fault. It is a government’s liability