1,766 die from road accidents

• Posted on November 30, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

THE National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) says 1,766 deaths have already been recorded as at October 2016 in Ghana from road accidents against its end year target of 1,440 deaths.

The Commission fears this could go up further with the approach of this year’s elections as well as the Christmas and New Year festivities. 

The Executive Director of the Commission, ING May Obiri-Yeboah, who made the disclosure last Wednesday in Accra told The Finder “we were not to have exceeded 1,440 deaths but as at October 2016, 1,766 deaths had been recorded and we are left with the rest of November and December to end the year.” 

This was at a training workshop organised jointly by the Commission and the Ghana Insurers Association (GIA) for all public transport service providers in Ghana.

The theme of the training programme was ‘Ensuring Safety on Our Roads before, during and after 2016 elections, Christmas and New Year.’

According to the NRSC boss, “in December we have an election which is a major activity that could result in more cases and then we have Christmas and the New Year so we will not make it and we have not made it.”

The number of deaths from road accidents reduced from 1713 in 2014 to 1474 in 2015 and the Commission had targeted a further reduction this year. 

ING Obiri-Yeboah attributed this year’s deaths to road crashes involving vehicles that have high capacity as well as the increased use of motorcycles.

“Nowadays just one crash can claim about 20 deaths while in previous years one crash could claim only 2 deaths; the increase in the use of motorcycles has also contributed to the increase in accident cases,” she explained. 

According to her, until recently, motorcycle accident cases were negligible but had now overtaken the passenger transport, adding “we record more motorcycle deaths than the usual transport.”

President of the GIA, Ms Aretha Duku appealed to stakeholders in the transport sector to be ambassadors of the campaign for motorists to respect other road users.

“Armed with the requisite knowledge gained through such training programmes we can avoid the unnecessary loss of lives and the irreparable damage these they cause our society, “Ms Duku said in her address to the trainees.

The Director of Planning and Programmes at the NRSC, Mr David Osafo Adonteng, spoke against driver indiscipline which, he noted, was responsible for majority of the reported cases.

He appealed to drivers to adhere strictly to the speed limits to avert the increasing road crashes.

By Isaac AIDOO, Accra