60% of road crashes caused by excessive speeding - NRSC

Mr Noble John Appiah, Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), has said 60 per cent of road crashes are caused by excessive speeding by drivers in the country.

He said the use of book logs in every vehicle terminal to record the time the vehicle left and the number of hours used for the journey could serve as a mechanism to ensure road safety in the country.

Mr Appiah said in the long term, a tachnograph device must be installed in all vehicles to record how many kilometer a driver drove a day, where and how long he rested which he explained is a requirements under the new road traffic regulations.

He said this in Accra when management of NRSC paid a working visits to management of Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMTL) to ascertain its operations on compliance to guidelines in ensuring to road safety.

Mr Appiah said the visit was necessary to prompt executives of MMTL, the major public transport to be proactive and ensure that their drivers adhere to the rules and regulations governing road safety.

He said in recent times there have been crashes involving Metro Mass buses which call for urgent attention from the public adding that the visits will be regular to serve as a reminder in exercising its duty as road safety commission.

Mr Appiah said another concern from the meeting was that though some of the drivers are professional they still do not have enough training to keep them updated and urged the National Drivers Academy to go beyond theory and focus more on risk management.

He said the commission had instituted standards for commercial road transport passenger service operators where the operators will publish road safety policies and statutory requirements for information and education of new drivers.

Mr Appiah said in the expected standards, operators must produce maintenance programme for vehicles and ensure that they are kept to the minimum driver and vehicle licensing authority road worthiness requirements.

Present at the meeting were Mary Obiri-Yeboa, Manager of the Planning and Education Unit of the NRSC, Mr Stephen Yeboah, Human Resource and Administrative Manager, Emmanuel Armah, Legal Manager, Frank Yeboah Koranteng, Traffic Operations Manager and Ebenezer Allotey Acting Technical Manager.