Let’s avoid senseless killings on our roads - Christian Council

The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) on Friday called on the Motor Traffic and Transport Division (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service to tighten its efforts to make the roads safe for the travelling public.

The Council said the MTTD should be up to their task and be in a hurry to tow abandoned vehicles that were left on the roads and became traps for other vehicles to crush into and kill people.

“At the moment we are experiencing senseless killings on our roads and the recent one just happened on Tuesday in at Akwatia resulting in the death of a former Member of Parliament,” Reverend Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, the General Secretary of the CCG, said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency.

Rev. Opuni-Frimpong, who made reference to the concern raised in Parliament on the senseless killings on the roads, recounted a number of accidents that had claimed many lives as a result of clashing into abandoned vehicles on the Accra-Kumasi Highway, the Techiman-Kintampo and the Cape Coast Takoradi roads among others.

“The MTTD is the body supposed to make our roads safe. They are supposed to clear the roads off broken down vehicles and the owners surcharged for it,” he said.

Rev. Opuni-Frimpong said: “The order and regulations should be applied,” and urged owners of broken down vehicles to pick them up on time to curb the danger they posed to society.

Members of Parliament on Tuesday expressed worry about the rampant road accidents and called for enforcement of road traffic regulations to drastically reduce the spate of motor traffic accidents and consequent deaths and injuries in the country.

Ms Mavis Nkansah Boadu, the MP for Efigya Sekyere East, who raised the issue on the floor of Parliament, expressed concern about the littering of roads with broken down vehicles, wrongful parking, refusal of pedestrians to use footbridges and lawlessness of some motorcycle riders.

Mr Haruana Iddrisu, the Minority Leader, said discipline on the roads was a shared responsibility among motorists, commuters and the police.

Ms Sarah Adwoa Safo, the Deputy Majority Leader, said the problem was not about the legislation but rather the slack in the enforcement of laws.