NRSC Advises Transport Operators

Noble John Appiah

Noble John Appiah, Executive Director, National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), has urged transport operators to institute training programmes for their drivers to ensure safety on the country's roads.

He said through training the drivers would become abreast with regulations.

'We are worried over the recent road clashes and we want to seek immediate solutions to them,' said Mr. Appiah shortly after a meeting with a cross-section of key stakeholders in the transport sector in Accra.

He stated that the Commission, in collaboration with other stakeholders, last year developed a Motor Vehicle Operational Standards for commercial road transport passenger service operators, adding 'we will be monitoring to ensure that these standards are adhered to.'

Among others the standards require all commercial transport operators to have road safety officers to check vehicles before hitting the roads, as well as institute training programmes for the drivers.

When Justice Amegashie, Chief Executive Officer of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), took his turn, he said transport operators would breach that law if they allow incompetent drivers to handle vehicles.

'The law imposes responsibility on the person who has custody of a vehicle at any point in time to be certified and the vehicle to be insured.'

He advised transport operators to get copies of the road traffic regulations and added that 'the responsibility is on you and you better start putting your acts together.'

Salia Adams, General Secretary of the Ghana Haulage Transport Association, later in an interview told CITY & BUSINESS GUIDE that the road safety campaigns and training programmes, which were organized at the later part of 2012 for drivers and transport owners, must be sustained.

'Before and during the Christmas season a lot of education went down and this must be a continuous process,' he said.

'When the driver leaves the station it is a different thing.'

Ben Amoabeng Peprah, National Chairman of the Private Road Transport Operators Association, on his part, expressed dissatisfaction with broken down traffic lights and the lack of implementation of regulations.

'That is why the MTTU officer must know that he is supposed to be on the road to prevent road offenses and not to hid with the expectation of arresting offenders and the driver must also not wait for the presence of the police officer before doing the right thing.'

Air Commodore Denise Derry of the Road Safety Management Service Limited noted that his outfit had instituted a mechanism to remove abandoned vehicles from the roads to prevent carnage.

He said 22 percent of the road accidents are caused by the damaged vehicles.

By Emelia Ennin Abbe y