Road Safety: Obey speed limits - Mayor Sowah cautions drivers

The Metropolitan Chief Executive of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah has cautioned motorists to comply with the 50km/h and 30km/h speed limits in urban and school areas respectively as stipulated in Ghana Road Traffic Regulations (L.I.2180) when plying the city's roads.

This according to him would go a long way to help reduce the high rate of road crash fatalities and injuries recorded in the city.

Mr. Sowah gave the advice during a field training session on the Kawukudi- 37 link in Accra on Friday 1 November2019 to equip police officers from the Motor, Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD)/of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) with the skill of operating a newly acquired speed detection device; Laser Cam 4, which saw the arrest of 13 motorist driving above the 50km/h speed limit.

“We have a major challenge with speeding in Accra, this year over 1500 people have died from road crashes, it could be your relative or friend. We came here to test run the new speed guns and we are going to hand them over to the police soon to enforce speeding regulations. The new devices would help provide evidence to help prosecute motorist who speeds. Today 95 per cent of all vehicles on the Kawukudi-37 link were speeding above the speed limit and this is unacceptable. Once the police capture the evidence of your speeding and present it to the court, your guess is as good as mine,“ he said.

"Data from the Motor, Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) indicates that 70 per cent of road crash victims were pedestrians. A life lost means a lot to us, everybody matters. Today we are cautioning all of you to be responsible and obey the rules and be ambassadors for road safety," he added.

The Business Development Engineer for the ROBTECH suppliers of the new speed guns said the device could read speed of 52 cars in 30 seconds and could capture the number plates of these vehicles.

He described the new speed detection device as a fourth-generation video device with patent features such as auto-track, adding that the device also zooms continually with target tracking, optimization of target-specific measurements and simplification of the user experience which he believes would help immeasurably in reducing speeding in the city.

A staff officer of the Central MTTD, ASP Richard Nyarko, expressed gratitude to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Bloomberg Philanthropies for Global Road Safety (AMA - BIGRS) for equipping the police to enforce speeding in the city adding that the device would go a long way to aid in prosecuting offenders who speed on the roads.

"We don't have such device to provide real-time evidence of speeding when drivers are caught but with these new devices we are assured of concrete evidence to prosecute offenders," he said, cautioning drivers to obey the speed limits to avoid prosecution.

The Coordinator for Bloomberg Philanthropist for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), Osei Kufour in an interview during the opening of the training said the training was also to unveil the new devices to assist the police do their work more effectively.

"Previously, the police were using a speed gun which could capture only one vehicle at a time and lots of people escaped because they weren't enough evidence to prosecute them,” he said.

Mr. Osei Kufour, emphasized that the training forms part of activities to equip the police ahead of the road safety mass media campaign in the metropolis.