Mr Mohammed Adjei Sowah, the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive has cautioned motorists to comply with the speed limits in urban and school areas as stipulated in the Ghana Road Traffic Regulations.
He said if the drivers adhere to the stipulated speed limits of 50km/h and 30km/h in the Legislative Instrument (LI 2180) it would help reduce the high rate of road crash fatalities and injuries recorded in the city.
Mr Sowah gave the warning during a field training session on the Kawukudi – 37 link in Accra on Friday, to equip police officers from the Motor, Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service.
The police officers were equipped with the skill of operating a newly acquired speed detection device; Laser Cam ‘4’, which led to the arrest of 13 motorist driving above the 50km/h speed limit.
Mr Sowah said: “We have a major challenge with speeding in Accra, this year over 1,500 people have died from road crashes, it could be your relative or friend.
“We came here to test-run the new speed guns and we are going to hand them over to the police soon to enforce speeding regulations.
He said the new devices would help provide evidence to help prosecute motorist who speed, adding that; “Today 95 per cent of all vehicles on the Kawukudi - 37 link were speeding above the speed limit and this is unacceptable.
“Once the police captures the evidence of your speeding and presents it to the court, your guess is as good as mine.”
The Chief Executive said data from the MTTD indicated that 70 per cent of road crash victims were pedestrians, adding “a life lost means a lot to us, everybody matters. Today we are cautioning all of you (drivers) to be responsible and obey the rules and be ambassadors for road safety.”
Mr Hamdy Hussein, the Business Development Engineer of the ROBTECH, suppliers of the new speed detection devices, said the equipment could read speed of 52 cars in 30 seconds and could capture the number plates of these vehicles.
He described the devices as a fourth-generation video devices with patent features such as auto-track, which zooms continually with target tracking, optimisation of target-specific measurements and simplification of the user experience that would help immeasurably in reducing speeding in the city.
ASP Richard Nyarko of the Central MTTD, expressed gratitude to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Bloomberg Philanthropies for Global Road Safety for equipping the police to enforce speed limits in the city.
"We don't have such device to provide real-time evidence of speeding when drivers are caught but with these new devices we are assured of concrete evidence to prosecute offenders," he said, and admonished drivers to obey the speed limits to avoid prosecution.
Mr Osei Kufuor, the Coordinator for Bloomberg Philanthropies for Global Road Safety, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the training was also to unveil the new devices to assist the police to do their work effectively.
"Previously, the police were using a speed gun which could capture only one vehicle at a time and lots of people escaped because they weren't enough evidence to prosecute them,” he said.
Mr Osei Kufour said the training also forms part of activities to equip the police ahead of the road safety mass media campaign in the metropolis.
Source: GNA
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