Kumasi, Nov. 02, GNA - The Ministry of Transportation is developing a five-year National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) and Action Plan for implementation from 2006 to 2010.
This is to ensure safer roads, vehicles and road user behaviour among the public through strict enforcement of the Road Traffic Act (Act 683) and other regulations.
It would in addition, ensure that roads in the country become the safest on the African continent.
Mr Magnus Opare-Asamoah, Deputy Minister of Transportation announced this in an address read on his behalf at the opening session of a five-day course in road safety management for selected Engineers nation-wide in Kumasi.
It is being organised by the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to provide a platform for the participants to share knowledge and ideas to enhance road safety management.
Mr Opare-Asamoah noted that about 90 per cent of road accidents in the country were caused by recklessness and indiscipline by road users. He said such high level of indiscipline exhibited by drivers, motor riders, pedestrians and passengers when not addressed could be a hindrance to ensuring safety on the roads.
The Deputy Minister expressed concern about the intensive campaign to reduce road accidents but some road users were still engaged in excessive speeding, over-loading, driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs as well as wanton disregard for traffic rules and called for an attitudinal change by road users.
Evaluating the implementation of the 2001-2005 NRSS, Mr Opare-Asamoah noted that road accidents recorded within the period were much lower than what the situation could have been without the strategy. He said with the implementation of the NRSS, there had been a significant and consistent decline in the fatality rates of road accidents from 40.7 per cent in 1998 to 20 per cent in 2005.
Mr Kwaku Amoa-Mensah, Director of BRRI, was optimistic that at the end of the course the collective application of the enhanced knowledge shared in road safety management would reposition the country on improved road safety management road map.
