Burkina Faso Code de la Route (B) common mistakes
Burkina Faso Code de la Route (B) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Confusing priority-to-the-right at ordinary intersections with the priority rules at roundabouts and at junctions marked by a stop sign or a yield line, and entering without checking whether the other road is a priority road.
Learners memorise 'priorité à droite' as a slogan and then apply it everywhere, including at roundabouts (where entering vehicles yield to those already circulating) and at intersections where a stop line, yield line or priority-road sign already settles the question. The rule is learned as a phrase rather than as a decision procedure tied to the markings and signs actually present.
What to do instead
Before every intersection, run a fixed checklist in order: (1) any light or sign governing me, (2) any road marking (stop line, yield line), (3) whether the other road is a priority road, (4) only then the default priority-to-the-right. Practise on paper diagrams of five junction types until the checklist is automatic, and state aloud which element decided the priority each time.
Reading a sign's shape and colour but not its supplementary panel, so a danger sign is treated as a rule that applies everywhere rather than only over the distance or to the category shown on the panel below it.
Candidates learn sign families (triangle = danger, circle = obligation or prohibition) and stop there. Supplementary panels are small, often dirty or faded on real roads, and are skipped under time pressure in the exam, so the answer ignores the distance, the vehicle category or the exception the panel specifies.
What to do instead
Train on the principle that a sign plus its panel form one single instruction. For each sign, ask three questions: what does the shape mean, what does the symbol mean, and what does the panel below restrict or specify? Build a personal list of the panels that change the answer most often (distance over which a danger applies, vehicle categories, times of day) and review it before the test.
Answering speed questions with the general urban or rural limit while ignoring the specific limit posted, the limit implied by the road type, or the reduction required by rain, poor visibility or a heavy load.
The general limits are the numbers most often repeated in lessons, so they surface first in memory. Candidates also treat the limit as a target rather than a ceiling, forgetting that the safe speed must also allow stopping within the visible distance, which on a wet or unlit road is well below the posted figure.
What to do instead
For every speed question, identify the road category, then check for a posted or implied specific limit, then apply any weather or visibility reduction. Separately memorise the stopping-distance logic (reaction distance plus braking distance, both growing with speed, braking distance growing much faster) and use it to justify answers rather than guessing.
Treating the safety gap to the vehicle ahead as a fixed number of metres regardless of speed, and following closely behind a lorry or bus that blocks the view of the road ahead.
Learners look for a single memorised distance and do not connect the gap to speed and reaction time. Following a large vehicle also feels protective because it shields from oncoming traffic, so the habit is reinforced rather than corrected, and the hidden risk, no forward visibility and no room to stop if the lorry brakes, is never felt until it is too late.
What to do instead
Use a time-based rule you can apply without instruments: pick a fixed roadside point, and the gap should be at least two seconds in good conditions and more in rain, at night or on gravel. Behind a lorry or bus, drop back further so you can see past it and be seen in its mirrors. Rehearse the two-second count on every practice drive until it is habitual.
Overtaking without confirming the full sequence: no check of mirrors and blind spot, no signal, overtaking near a crest, bend, pedestrian crossing or junction, or pulling back in before the overtaken vehicle is visible in the interior mirror.
Overtaking is taught as a single action rather than a sequence of gates, and on quiet roads the absence of traffic teaches the wrong lesson: the manoeuvre succeeds without checks, so the checks are dropped. Candidates also underestimate how long an overtake takes when the vehicle ahead is long or slow, and misjudge the distance to oncoming traffic.
What to do instead
Learn overtaking as a fixed five-step sequence: is it permitted here, is it safe ahead, mirrors and blind spot, signal and move out, return only when the overtaken vehicle appears in the interior mirror. Practise refusing overtakes deliberately, saying aloud why each refusal is correct, so that the decision to wait becomes as practised as the manoeuvre itself.
Underestimating the space and unpredictability of pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, hand carts and livestock, and passing them at speed without leaving lateral clearance or expecting a sudden change of line.
Vulnerable users are treated as obstacles that will behave predictably, and in a mixed-traffic environment they rarely do: a pedestrian may step out from between parked vehicles, a motorcyclist may swerve around a pothole, an animal may bolt. Candidates also forget that a two-wheeler needs room to balance and that a herd is led, not driven, and may turn back.
What to do instead
Adopt a rule of anticipation: for any vulnerable user ahead, reduce speed, increase lateral clearance, and cover the brake before reaching them. Specifically, expect a child or animal to move unpredictably, expect a cyclist or motorcyclist to avoid the road surface defect before you see it, and slow to walking pace for livestock. Practise naming the escape route you would use for each hazard you pass.
Driving at night or in rain, dust or harmattan haze on sidelights or without adjusting speed and gap, and failing to use the correct lighting for the situation, including dipping headlights for oncoming traffic.
Candidates think of lighting as a switch to be turned on when it is dark rather than as a visibility management tool. In harmattan haze or heavy rain, daytime conditions look bright enough that lights seem unnecessary, and the reduced contrast and longer stopping distance are not factored into speed. Glare from undipped headlights and from a dirty windscreen is also underestimated.
What to do instead
Learn a lighting decision table: which lights for night, for rain, for fog or dust, for being seen in daytime haze, and when to dip. Pair it with a visibility rule: drive so you can stop within the distance you can actually see, which in harmattan or heavy rain may mean well under half the posted limit. Keep the windscreen and lights clean, and practise judging visibility distance by counting roadside markers.
Judging fitness to drive by how tired or how drunk one feels rather than by objective signs, and believing that coffee, a short nap or a meal cancels the effect of alcohol or fatigue.
Impairment is felt as a subjective state, and the first effects of alcohol are precisely a loss of judgement about one's own impairment. Fatigue is similarly misread: the driver notices the yawn but not the micro-sleeps, and the remedies that feel effective (fresh air, loud music, coffee) treat the sensation, not the loss of attention and reaction time.
What to do instead
Replace self-assessment with rules: no alcohol at all before driving, since any amount slows reaction and the legal limit is a ceiling, not a target; and for fatigue, the only effective remedy is to stop in a safe place and sleep, with a planned break every two hours on long trips. Learn to recognise the warning signs (heavy eyelids, drifting, missing signs) as a stop signal, not a challenge to push on.
At an accident scene, moving an injured person, failing to secure the site, or omitting the emergency call and the information needed for it, and not knowing what the vehicle documents require in the aftermath.
Panic and the wish to help immediately push candidates towards action, and lifting or moving a casualty feels like rescuing them. Candidates also do not rehearse the call, so they cannot state location, number of casualties and hazards clearly, and they forget the protective steps (warning triangle, hazard lights, getting bystanders clear) that prevent a second collision.
What to do instead
Memorise a fixed scene protocol in order: protect (stop safely, hazard lights, triangle at the required distance, get people off the carriageway), alert (call the emergency services with precise location, number and condition of casualties, hazards), then assist within your competence, never moving a casualty unless there is immediate danger such as fire. Rehearse the call aloud until the details come in the right order.
Treating documents and sanctions as paperwork to be memorised at the end, so the candidate cannot say which document proves insurance cover, which proves the vehicle's roadworthiness, what a receipt for a fine means, or what the immediate consequence of a serious offence is.
Document and penalty topics are dry and are left until last, then learned as isolated lists without links to the situations in which a driver is asked for them. Candidates also confuse the administrative consequence (fine, points, suspension) with the criminal one, and do not know which behaviours trigger immediate measures such as vehicle immobilisation.
What to do instead
Build a single table of documents with three columns: what it proves, who issues it, and when a driver must produce it. Add a second table of offences with the sanction, the points consequence and any immediate measure, and link each offence to the road situation that produces it. Review both tables weekly rather than once, and test yourself by scenario rather than by list.