Cameras To Check Traffic Offences

Cameras are to be installed on major roads and strategic areas as part of national efforts to check speeding and other road traffic offences, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has announced.

The installation of the cameras forms part of a strategic plan to implement an integrated speed management programme in the country.

The Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation of the NRSC, Mr David Osafo Adonteng, made this known at a meeting with religious bodies in Accra to sensitise them to road safety.

The theme of the meeting was: “Road Safety Guidelines for Religious Bodies”.

According to Mr Adonteng, the NRSC’s strategic plan was intended to reduce road traffic fatalities and injuries by 50 per cent by 2020 as recommended in the United Nation’s Decade of Action for road safety.

In a presentation, Mr Adonteng, who spoke on the road safety situation in Ghana, said the country lost GH¢26.17 billion annually as a result of road traffic accidents.

He said statistics had shown that 11,500 people died annually from road accidents while 14,500 sustained injuries every year.

Mr Adonteng said the statistics had shown that one person died every four hours due to road fatalities while five deaths were being recorded everyday.

He listed bad attitude and behaviour among drivers as some of the problems responsible for the high rate of accidents.

The director expressed the hope that road accidents would be reduced from 1,500 to 1,440 by 2015.

As part of a strategic plan to reduce road fatalities, he stated, the authorities would also initiate a national driver’s academy to train those who would want to go into commercial driving.

The Planning and Programme Manager of the NRSC, Mrs May Obiri Yeboah, called on religious bodies to appoint responsible persons to implement the road safety guidelines for religious bodies.

She advised religious bodies to appoint focal persons to work closely with the religious leaders to ensure that issues contained in the guidelines were strictly complied with.

“People react the way they are trained to practise so if we keep practising these steps, it will become our second nature, a phenomenon that would surely reduce causalities on our roads,” she said.

The Bishop of the Somanya Diocese of the Methodist Church, Ghana, Rt. Rev Albert Ofoe Wright, said the main objective of road transport must be to save lives.

On behalf of the religious bodies, he promised to disseminate what was contained in the guidelines.

The National Chief Imam, Sheikh Usman Nuhu Sharabutu, said everyone had a responsibility to ensure road safety.

He, therefore, called on drivers to reduce speeding and also called on passengers not to disturb drivers while driving.