Let's hosts Ghana 2008 alive - NRSC

Accra, Jan. 15, GNA - The National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), has called on Ghanaians to observe road safety regulations and practices religiously to ensure that Ghanaians stay alive during and after the Ghana 2008 football tournament.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday, Mrs. May Obiri-Yeboah, Manager of Education and Planning at NRSC said the Commission, in collaboration with its coordinating agencies had put in place a number of measures to ensure a road accident free tournament. "We have designed Ghana 2008 branded road safety stickers, flyers and posters to be distributed across the country just before and during the tournament in addition to the provision of road safety messages on the score boards in all the stadia," she said.

Mrs. Obiri-Yeboah said the commission had also contracted mobile phone companies, the Tigo and Onetouch to send road safety text messages to their subscribers during the tournament, adding that, the police had been provided with speed guns and alcohol meters to check excessive speeding and drink-driving as well as radio and TV commercials together in which a renowned Ghanaian footballer, a pastor and a driver would speak to the issue of road safety.

She said the focus of the road safety messages would be on drink driving, excessive speeding and fatigue, saying that the three had been identified as the major causes of road accidents in the country. Mrs. Obiri-Yeboah noted that, during the tournament, fans of winning teams were likely to jubilate over loaded cars, excessive speeding and blowing of car horns and motor bike display on the roads and asked jubilating fans to observe the road safety regulations even in their jubilant mood.

"Those on motor bikes must wear their helmets and be cautious of their speed while those in cars should wear their seat belts, avoid over loading and excessive horn blowing," she said.

Mrs. Obiri-Yeboah cautioned persons who would like to drive from one region to the other to watch the Black Stars play to do their best to avoid fatigue by resting after every two hours of driving. "The purpose of our campaign during this period is to ensure that we host the tournament alive and for that matter we urge everyone to report defaulting drivers and also refuse to ride on vehicles driven by drunken drivers," she said.

She said the message would be extended to election 2008 with the view to impress upon political party leaders to preach the road safety message during the electioneering period.

"In the cause of the year, we would hold separate meetings with all the presidential and parliamentary aspirants as well the executives of all the political parties and educate them on the need to ensure that their followers observed regulations on the road during the elections," she said.

Mrs. Obiri-Yeboah noted that besides, drink-driving, over speeding and fatigue, mobile phone use during driving was also identified as one of the causes of road accident during the 2006 - 2007 period. Mrs. Obiri-Yeboah said the commission was in the process of setting up a Call Centre that would make numbers available on all landline and mobile phone networks to enable report persons, especially vehicular road users who violated safety regulations.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) indicates that annually road accidents accounts for at least 22.8 per cent of deaths, the highest of all causes of death, ahead of wars and armed conflict, which accounted for only 3.4 per cent of deaths.

Road transport accidents are also the ninth highest cause of injuries to humans and according to the WHO and likely to rise to the third position by 2020, if measures were not taken to stem it.