Story by Lilian Owusu- Mensah
The Director-General of the National Road Safety Authority, Ing David Osafo Adonteng has stated that 469 deaths have been recorded from road crashes alone for the first two months of 2022 due to the road users’ non-adherence to traffic rules and regulations.
He said this is an opportune time to talk about safety on the roads since in less than a week, the world will enter the Easter festive season which comes with excitement and merry-making and lots of movement on the roads.
“We cannot have any other good time to talk about safety than now when in the next few days we will be hitting the Easter season. So indeed it is time for us to begin to share views on what we see all the time within the road safety space”, he stated.
Speaking on the GTV Breakfast Show on Wednesday the 6th of April, 2022 on the topic “Avoidable carnage on our road: who is to blame? ” he disclosed that there was a total record of 2,924 deaths in the year 2021 because of road crashes. Also, there was a total record of 2,625 crashes with 2,663 injuries.
Speaking to the issues surrounding road carnage he said, although road crushes cannot be avoided, it should not be the cause for one to lose his or her life.
“We cannot avoid a crush but it shouldn’t result in the death of a human being because we can prevent it”, he stated.
He further disclosed that road crashes are one of the major causes of death in the country, but it seems people are not scared of the increase in crashes. Looking at the seriousness of the issue he mentioned that Ghanaians complain of crushes only when it happens and do not speak when the drivers are driving recklessly.
“Crash is one of the leading causes of death in Ghana and even across the world.Hit the Accra-Kumasi Highway and then it will tell you the story. Drivers will want to fly as if they are in an Aircraft. People sit in buses and are not complaining, they complain only when there is a crash”, he said.
The Engineer further stated that the issue of overspeeding and wrongful overtaking which are the main causes of the crashes are worse on the Accra-Winneba-Cape Coast and Takoradi roads. This is because one’s chances of survival are less in an overspeeding vehicle. He cautioned the public to adhere to the traffic rules and regulations and outlined their new measures to reduce road indiscipline and dealing with recalcitrant drivers.
“very soon the surveillance cameras are going to be expanded…they will pick out every detail about you and we will later send you a text message to that effect. We are bringing vehicles with installed cameras which are going to pick up every activity of the road users”, he posited.
Watch the full interview below ;
