ROAD SAFETY COMMITTEE ON WAR-PATH (Page 20)

Story: A. Kofoya-Tetteh, Koforidua

A comprehensive exercise to bring sanity to road transportation in the Eastern Region is expected to begin next month.
The exercise, which is expected to significantly reduce motor accidents on the road, would be conducted by a joint traffic management team (task force) comprising officials of the Road Safety Committee, the Department of Feeder Roads, Urban Roads, the Ghana Highway Authority, the Ghana National Fire Service and the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU).
Under the exercise, the task force would periodically and persistently be at all vantage points on the roads to arrest traffic offenders and promptly prosecute them.
The culprits to be arrested would include commercial drivers below the age of 25 who are by the new regulation not allowed to drive commercial vehicles and others who commit offences such as driving under the influence of alcohol, overloading, operating faulty vehicles, failure to wear seat belts and speeding, particularly along the Eastern Region stretch of the Accra-Kumasi highway.
The Regional Co-ordinator of the National Road Safety Committee, Mr Stephen Anokye, said the rationale behind the exercise was to drastically reduce the spate of motor accidents.
Giving the statistics on motor accidents in the region, he said in 2006, the region recorded 1,351 accidents of which 216 people died and 2,501 others sustained varying degrees of injury while 2007 registered 1,240 accidents with 199 deaths and 1,451 injuries.
"These accidents are mostly due to human error and faulty vehicles and this calls for urgent action to deal with the situation," he stated.
"We are going all out this time and it is not going to be a nine-day wonder and we expect the travelling public to co-operate for its successful implementation," Mr Anokye stressed.
According to him, although people above the age of 18 were qualified to be given driving licences, they were not allowed under the new traffic regulation to drive commercial vehicles.
Mr Anokye, therefore, appealed to transport owners to ensure that their commercial vehicles were manned by drivers above the age of 25.
He expressed regret that most often, offending drivers were left off the hook after they had been apprehended.
Mr Anokye stated that all such cases would be publicised for the public to know the magnitude of the problem.
Asked what the Road Safety Committee had done so far to curtail the high rate of motor accidents in the region, he said a number of campaigns had been organised at strategic locations such as the Kpong Lorry Park, Atimpoku, Nkawkaw and other towns during which drivers, passengers and pedestrians were properly educated on how best to avoid such accidents.