The Central Regional Director for the National Road Safety Authority, Ms Linda Affotey Annang is urging drivers and pedestrians to be responsible and cautious when using the road.
Her call comes after statistics from the national road safety authority indicated that 1,300 persons lost their lives through 7,687 road accidents from January to June this year and out of this, Central Region recorded 529 crashes and 104 deaths.
Road accidents involving private vehicles increased from 250 to 319 as motorcycles also increased from 153 to 182 but that of commercial vehicles dropped from 342 to 325.
According to her, pedestrians knock down also increased considerably from 110 to 123, also pedestrians killed increased from 43 to 46 and pedestrians injured jumped from 67 to 77.
Speaking exclusively to ATLFM NEWS, Ms Affotey Annang stressed that“…some of the causes of the crashes are basically the way we drive on our roads, the indiscipline, how people speed and do wrongful overtaking on the road…”
She said on the high way, most people do wrongful overtaking and in the process of doing this wrongful overtaking they end up colliding into another vehicle and that results in a lot of deaths and injuries that we see on our roads.
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She says the National Road Safety Authority is doing its best to ensure the safety of people on the roads, however, it is a collective responsibility where road users also have to do their part to ensure their own safety.
She therefore urged road users to stop being undisciplined on the road to save lives.
“Safety starts with you as individual… If we keep misbehaving on the road, if we keep being undisciplined on the road, then even though the police are doing what they are expected to do, we will keep having all these numbers rising.”
Ms Affotey Annan adds that “we also believe that there is so much awareness creation. Those are the things that we pride ourselves with. It is about eighty percent awareness creation that we have imparted into people.”
She also notes the public should endeavour to put into practice all they know about road safety because that is what will help reduce the number of carnages on Ghana’s roads.
Source: Abigail Adu Amoakowaah/ ATL FM NEWS
