Two Accidents Prone Roads On Safety Radar

The national road safety commission [NRSC], in partnership with the Motor Traffic and Transport Department [MTTD] of the Ghana Police service has embarked on monitoring and outreach exercise on the Tema-Akosombo highways, both noted as hot spots for road traffic crashes and fatalities.

Officials of the NRSC and the MTTD mounted checkpoints at Sogakope, Tsopoli and Atimpoku where personnel of the MTTD focused on checking the validity of driving licenses, roadworthy documents, worn out tyres, defective windscreens, fire extinguishers, among others and educated drivers on the need to ensure an accident free year.

Drivers were also sensitized to the need to check speed, drunk driving and driver fatigue.

Motor riders were also urged to wear crash helmets while passengers were advised to be vigilant and speak out on issues about road safety and traffic matters with the view to drastically reducing road traffic crashes.

Road crashes

The Volta regional manager of the Road Safety Commission, Mr. Kwasi Tibu Yirenkyi, with oversight responsibility of the two routes in an interview at Tsopoli, said the rationale behind the campaign was to educate drivers on the need to observe the rules and regulations on the road.

According to him, though there had been a reduction in the number of people who died through road accidents on the two routes in 2018, the NRSC considered the Tema-Aflao and Tema- Akosombo highways as the most crash-prone in the country.

He said even though the NSRC and the MTTD had mounted about six checkpoints between Prampram and Aflao, in addition to mobile units which conducted occasional checks, a lot of accidents were recorded on the route.

He, therefore, cautioned the drivers to be cautious in their work, avoid reckless driving and wrongful overtaking to ensure safety on the road.

Observation

Two board members of the NRSC who supervised the monitoring and outreach programme, Mr. Akwasi Agyeman Opambour and Mr. George Fausta Baffoe, both stressed the need for an attitudinal and behavioral change on the part of some drivers.

Mr. Obambour said the monitoring and outreach exercises came in during the festive period during which NRSC conducted series of sensitization and awareness campaign towards an accident-free Christmas.

He said the lessons and observations made would be factored into the commission’s plans for 2019 to bolster its operations and curb the carnage on our roads.

He called on the law enforcement agencies to step up their efforts on the roads to put drivers in the check and further indicated that the NRSC was working with other stakeholders such as the Driver, Vehicle and Licensing Authority [DVLA] to ensure that rickety vehicles were not issued with road worthy stickers to ply the roads.