As the Christmas season comes close, road safety education has become necessary to help avert accidents due to increased volumes of vehicles and people on the road space where drivers always want to take advantage and make more sales. This tendency by create rushing and excessive speeding ending up killing innocent people.
The Acting Director of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) Ing. David Osafo Adonteng has warned drivers to drive with care before, during and after the Christmas season and urged them against excessive speeding to avoid road crushes.
He stressed , speeding excessively is by far the most prevalent contributory factor to road crashes, contributing to over 60 percent of all fatal crashes in Ghana.
“It is with great concern that we witness the devasting consequences of speeding on our roads, causing countless crashes, injuries, and fatalities. This shows that, we must work hard to reverse the tide and preserve human life through collaborative efforts from all road safety stakeholders’ agencies and bear a behavioral change towards our roads. We must think road safety at all times and thinking safety requires that, we must obey all road traffic rules and regulations”.
Ing. David Osafo Adonteng made this known at a press briefing about the Authority’s preparedness towards ensuring Safety on the roads during the 2023 Christmas festivity and beyond.
The occasion witnessed the launch of the 2023 road safety Christmas campaign under the theme ‘STOP Speeding, STAY ALIVE’.
“There is the high tendency of road-users especially drivers and riders ignoring all road traffic rules and culminating into acts of moving people in haste to get to their destinations quickly without due care. Travel speeds are significantly high, overtaking other vehicles at wrong locations is rampant, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs substances is highly pronounced, loading our vehicles beyond the requisite capacity, etc., all with the view of getting to my destination early, maximizing revenue, making merry and : some cases enjoyment”.
Ing. Adonteng revealed that, last year 2022 during Christmas from December 24 — 26, the nation recorded 142 crashes, 215 injuries and 25 deaths while in 2021 same period the nation recorded 133 crashes, 148 injuries and 28 deaths.
He added that this year, available provisional data from the Ghana Police Service indicates that from January to October 2023, 11,694 cases of road crashes have been reported resulting in 12,678 persons injured and 1,839 persons killed.
According to Ing. Osafo Adonteng, the Authority recognize that the above figures when compared to the same period last year 2022, there have been reductions in the cases of crashes, injuries and the deaths by 7 percent, 3.36 percent and 7.4 percent respectively.
“Reducing crashes, injuries and deaths on the road even by one percent is an arduous task considering the rising growth in vehicular and human population coupled with challenges associated with the institutional and attitudinal challenges, we hereby commend all stakeholders to in the road safety management chain especially the key stakeholders comprising the DVLA, MTTD of Ghana Police Service, the Road Agencies – GHA, DUR and DFR, The National Ambulance Service, Ghana Red Cross Society, Ghana National Fire Service Ghana and all others both public and private, NGOs/CSOs and the Media who in divers ways have been at the frontline fighting the menace of road traffic crashes under the Stay Alive Campaign and our slogan Road Safety is a shared and collective responsibility”.
He reminded all road-users that, the road transport space comprising the road, vehicles and humans is a vital resource for safe travel to enhance life, explore and exploit opportunities for national development. Christmas seasons are not different and must be recognized as such.
“We warn all users of the road that no one has the right to exhibit lawlessness, misconduct himself/herself on our roads in a manner that undermines the rights of others to use the road space”.
Ing. Osafo Adonteng further charged the clergy saying, the church owes its congregation the duty to protect the lives of their members by advising them on the need to Staying Alive in road traffic, as they preach love and the birth of Christ to their congregation.
“To all our passengers, please be assured that you will be safe during and beyond this Christmas season, we advise that every passenger should board a commercial bus from a lorry terminal or station. The National Road Sfety Authority in collaboration with the key road transport operators comprising Intercity STC, MMT, GPRTU, PROTOA, VIP, 2M Express, OA, etc. are in the process of installing electronic devices to track and monito driver behaviour to ensure compliance with speeds and other operational standards”.
