?Mr David Osafo Adonteng, Ag Director-General, National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), has expressed optimism about the reduction of figures as far as road clashes are concerned. He said road crashes, injuries and deaths could not be eliminated completely, but they were motivated by sustenance and maintenance to do better in terms of the reduction. The Acting Director-General was speaking during an NRSA stakeholder’s meeting in Accra. Road crashes statistics gathered by the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS), for the first quarter of 2023, indicated a reduction in road accidents compared to the same period in 2022. The statistics revealed that a total of 3,340 cases were recorded between January to March 2023, a 15.06 percent reduction compared to the same period in 2022. Mr Adonteng said the Authority was looking forward to enhancing their road safety campaigns, engagements with the media, public, stakeholders, especially transport operators. He said the passing of the new Legislative instrument passed by Parliament to fully operationalise the road safety Act meant that the authority had the mandate and power to ensure compliance of road safety rules and regulations, particularly with regards to standards. Mr Adonteng, however, said the power given to the?Authority was not to apprehend more traffic offenders, but to ensure that institutions are forthcoming in responding to road safety issues. ‘We have also installed trackers and devices that will enable us to monitor their behaviors in traffic, should we see that they are going beyond speed limits, it will record automatically, which means that we are now deploying systems, technology that will enable us do more than we are doing now,’ he added. Mr Adonteng said the implementation of the Ll had started and they would use more practical solutions to road safety management. He said ” the issues of streetlights, road signs and markings, we are going to take that on board, the potholes where we get the complaint from the general public are all now going to be looked at differently using the law.’ Mr Jermaine Nkrumah, Chairman, NRSA called for the establishment of Unions or Associations for owners of private car to enable the Authority to engage them to aid in decreasing road crashes. He said for the past few times, accidents caused by commercial vehicles were decreasing as those caused by private vehicles were on the rampant. ‘When you look at the crashes, injuries and deaths, commercial vehicles are down, surprisingly, motorcycles are down also, but guess who’s up, private vehicle owners, hence, there is the need to establish some representatives for private car owners,’ Mr Nkrumah said Ghana recorded only 1.4 per cent of all accidents on the continent despite driving higher proportions of vehicles on the continent. Mr Godfred Abulbire, General-Secretary, Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU), said with reference to the Ll 2180, they had picked quite a number of the regulations and were working on them. He said passengers’ manifest data was to be one of them, where travelers would have to give out some information to be entered into their systems, where there was an accident or any casualty, they would be able to account for every passenger on board. Mr. Abulbire also said they had engaged with a towing company, where every member of the Union would have to subscribe so that in case of a car breakdown, they would be able to call for assistance within the shortest possible time. He stressed that should any driver by their own means tow their cars, the company would pay for any charge attributed to it.

Source: Ghana News Agency