Correspondence from Eastern Region:
The Eastern Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), Abdulai Bawa Ghamsah, has bemoaned the impunity with which drivers in the country violate the road traffic regulations and thus, causing many of the accidents on the road.
Most drivers caught, were driving without license, others too were driving without basic knowledge of road signs on the road, and to make matters worse, they drive on inappropriate speed limits and had no vehicle safety kits in their vehicles.
To the NRSA Regional Manager, the punishment being meted out on such recalcitrant drivers has been too lenient and that the stiffer the punishment for such drivers, the better it would be for Ghana to reduce the carnages on the road, especially on the highways.
Expressing his worry to Ghanaweb at Bunso Junction during a joint road safety operation dubbed, “Arrive Alive campaign” to check and monitor drivers, Mr. Ghamsah averred that most drivers disregard the road signs meant to direct them to safety even though they are knowledgeable about them.
“Majority of the drivers know the road signs very well, just a few. Majority of them know and still they violate them; Even some of us, professionals, will see a speed limit posted 50kmh and that is the time you are moving your gear to the next one to move at 120kmh.
“People are violating the law with impunity because the punishment associated sometimes with traffic law violation in Ghana seems to be small, that is why some of us are advocating for stiffer punishment so that it will deter people from just disobeying the law with laxity.
“Let’s hope that with time something will be done about the fines and punishment that are meted out to traffic offenders. People will begin to do the right thing in the country and then our roads will become safer for us,” he said.
Mr. Ghamsah posited that since some drivers do not want to comply with the road traffic regulations, unless they are forced to do so, there is the need for law enforcers to be on the road to check them.
“Most of the accidents in the region happen between 2am and 6am and we do not have the police MTTD around and that brings indiscriminate use of the road; Drivers doing what they feel like doing, they continue to do and that is why you get these kinds of accidents.
“But if we can make ourselves available and present on the road at these peak hours, especially, 5pm to 9pm and 2am and 6am, this issue of fatigue driving, drunk driving and speed limit violation will be a thing of the past. No driver will have that luxury to just flout our regulations and go scot free,” the NRSA Manager said.
The “Arrive Alive Road Safety Campaign” exercise is jointly being undertaken by the Police MTTD, National Road Safety Authority, DVLA and Ghana Highways Authority to monitor, educate and, where the need be, enforce the traffic rules and regulation.
The first phase of the exercise focused on the Nsawam-Nkawkaw stretch of the Accra-Kumasi Highway where officers were positioned at vantage points from Nsawam to Sekyere Tollbooth.
On his part, the Eastern Regional MTTD Commander, Chief Superintendent Stephen Kofi Ahiatafu, stated that the road accidents statistics in the region suggested that “a lot of drivers are on the road and do not have a licence. They are the ones who cause a lot of road crashes within the region.”
“During our rounds, you realise that when you ask basic road signs...these strips in the middle of the road, when you ask the drivers, they don’t even know, none of them so far knows,” he lamented.
Chief Superintendent Ahiatafu believed that the regular presence of the law enforces on the road to monitor and educate drivers would ameliorate the challenge and subsequently make the road safer for both drivers and passengers.
“This monitoring, our presents alone on the road will deter drivers who do not have licence to come on the road,” he added.
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