  Road accidents are estimated to be the ninth leading cause of death across
all age groups globally. 1.25 million people die annually from road accidents
and Africa has the highest rate of road fatalities [1]. Research shows that
three out of five road accidents are caused by driver-related behavioral
factors [2]. Self-driving technology has the potential of saving lives lost to
these preventable road accidents. Africa accounts for the majority of road
fatalities and as such would benefit immensely from this technology. However,
financial constraints prevent viable experimentation and research into
self-driving technology in Africa. This paper describes the design of RollE, an
affordable modular autonomous vehicle development platform. It is capable of
driving via remote control for data collection and also capable of autonomous
driving using a convolutional neural network. This system is aimed at providing
students and researchers with an affordable autonomous vehicle to develop and
test self-driving car technology.
