Tunis ring road plan being formed

The Tunisian Government is setting out plans for a new ring road to be constructed in the Greater Tunis area. This 80km ring road project is expected to cost in the region of US$365 million to construct. The project forms part of a series of works in the country intended to improve connectivity. Tunisia is being connected to the new North African highway, which will run some 5,600km in total from Morocco to Egypt when it is complete. However Tunisia, like many North African nations, does have a comparatively high accident rate on its road network. During the first four months of 2013 around 400 people died in road crashes in Tunisia. This was an improvement from the same period in 2012 though, with fatalities falling some 17%, a 4.4% reduction in crashes and a 4.7% drop in injuries to 4,137. As expected, capital Tunis featured the largest number of road crashes, followed by Ariana, Manouba, Ben Arous, Sousse, Bizerte, and Nabeul. Driver inattention was listed as a major cause of crashes and the number resulting from this problem increased 9.5% in the first four months of 2013.