Cape Coast highway records over 60 percent Central Region road accidents

The Accra-Cape Coast highway accounted for more than 60 percent of all road crashes recorded in 2017, making it the most dangerous road corridor in the Central Region, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has said.

Mrs Affotey-Annang, Acting Regional Manager of the Commission disclosed this at the Central Regional Coordinating Council Meeting to review the performance of the various decentralised departments in Cape Coast on Friday.

The region recorded an increase in road accidents from 788 in 2016 to 978 in 2017, representing 23.7 per cent.

This figure involved over 1,402 vehicles and 307 pedestrians’ knockdowns through which 193 and 1,545 were killed and injured respectively. Mrs Affotey-Annang outlined poor safety attitudes on the part of drivers as a major contributing factor to the rising phenomenon of roads fatalities.

She mentioned speeding, drunk driving, fatigue, mechanical faults, inexperienced driving, disabled vehicles, poor visibility at night, wrongful overtaking and overloading of vehicles as some of the contributory factors to road accidents.

As a remedy, she announced that the NRSC had adopted a multifaceted approach to reduce the road fatalities using the”4Es” - Engineering and Environment, Education and Publicity, Enforcement and Regulation and Emergency medical Services to achieve safer road user behaviour, safer roads and vehicles.

The Commission particularly would also pay attention to pedestrians and bus occupants to significantly reduce fatalities through the media and outreach programmes in communities.

Additionally, it would continue to partner road safety stakeholders to undertake road safety education with the focus on passenger and pedestrian safety, since they occupied a large share of the accident death toll in the region.

Mrs Affotey-Annang bemoaned that priority was not given to road safety in the development agenda of the country as accidents brought hardships and negative consequences to individuals and the economy.

She said the Commission, in partnership with stakeholders, would not relent at its efforts to educate, supervise and enforce the various legislations as there were still huge obstacles to overcome.

Mrs Affotey-Annang encouraged all transport operators to do background checks on drivers before recruiting them and also conduct periodic training and screening to maintain a high standard of professionalism in the industry. The Paramount Chief of the Oguaa Traditional Area, Osabarima Kwesi Atta II who represented the Regional House of Chiefs.