Formulate road safety strategy to minimize injuries and deaths – MTTD

The Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service has suggested the formulation of a road safety strategy spelling out the policies, institutional arrangement coordination, funding database and capacity to deal with road traffic injuries and deaths.

It should also include an understanding of the volume of traffic deaths, injuries and crashes, the geographical areas of accidents, risk factors contributing to the crash and institutional structures necessary to address those problems.

Assistant Commissioner of police (ACP) Mr Anderson Fosu Ackaah, Commander of the MTTD, made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at the launch of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) Road Safety Report spanning 2016-2018 in Accra.

It was in coordination with the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS).

ACP Ackaah said: “We believe also that the collection and analysis of improved database is not only a pre-requisite but a mission for monitoring, investigating and enforcing road crash phenomenon.”

He expressed gratitude to the organisers and expressed the belief that the Report would provoke rethinking among stakeholders to enhance its relevance.

Mr Mohammed Adjei Sowah, the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive of the AMA, who launched the report, noted that the key findings should inform stakeholders in road safety to develop appropriate interventions.

He was hopeful that efforts at the city level would complement various initiatives at the district and regional levels to improve road safety.

The report shows that the number of reported road crashes in Accra dropped from 1,697 in 2016 to 1,248 in 2017 but increased to 1,812 in 2018.

“There was a drop in the number of road traffic serious injuries and deaths from 2016-2017 while males accounted for more than 75 per cent of all road deaths and injuries that were recorded,” Mr Sowah said.

Dr Sara Whitehead of Vital Strategies, a Representative of Bloomberg, expressed regret that those injuries and deaths could be prevented while the detailed analysis in the Report shows where preventive efforts needed to be targeted to minimize the menace.