National Road Safety Commission urges stronger commitment to safer roads

The National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), on Thursday, tasked the key stakeholders in the transport sector to jointly work effectively with the Commission to achieve its target of halving road accidents by 2020.

The call for the commitment was made at the Quarterly Transporters Forum, organised by the NRSC, to deliberate how to improve road safety.

About 2,000 persons die annually from road crashes.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, on the sidelines of the event, Mr David Osafo Adonteng, the Director of Planning of NRSC, said the Commission had scaled up its public education on road safety with other measure, saying: “We are resolute to achieve the 2020 target.”

He said this year’s Forum was designed to be more interactive for the participants to express their concerns and thoughts on road safety issues to promote better understanding.

Mr Adonteng said the Forum further sought to enlighten the participants, who were made up of the leadership of the various Transport Unions, Tyre Dealers and representatives of some State and private institutions, on a newly drafted Road Safety Education Guide.

It was also to seek their ideas and input to engender prudent policies and initiatives that could reduce the menace of road accidents.

He said it was expected that the knowledge acquired by the participants on the Guide for Transport Operators, would be transferred to their membership for positive outcomes.

He expressed optimism about the future saying, “Our statistics on road accidents show that, there is a consistent decline in the rates of road accidents nationwide.”

As at the end of June 2017, Ghana had recorded 6,056 vehicular crashes from which 1,059 deaths were recorded and 5,997 persons injured, he said.

For the same period in 2016, the nation recorded 6,205 road crashes, from which 1,034 people died, and 5,302 sustained various degrees of injuries.

This, Mr Adonteng described this as “a significant improvement” and charged all stakeholders including the media, to deepen the driver education on road safety.

Mr Edward Kwakye, the Director of Transport and Administration of the Global Haulage Company, also urged the participants to extend the education to the members of their various institutions, saying spreading information about road safety at the grassroots level was crucial to the achievement of the set national goal.

He also called on the media to join efforts with the Commission to champion the cause of road safety, saying, “The NRSC expects that the media disseminate the right information about road safety.”

Mr Kwakye complained that, some journalists sometimes “distort the information released by the NRSC on road safety and accidents”, which he described as “worrying”.

He said it was necessary for the media as well as the public to understand the work of the Commission, and also the use of specific terms regarding road accidents, so that in reporting, the correct explanations and accounts would be given without any embellishments or distortions.