Saturday, 26 November 2011

Safety!Our Priority


                                     
There have been alarming news accounts on the various networks and in the newspaper about the increasing spate of road accidents resulting in preventive deaths
Statistics sourced from the Ghana Road Safety Commission indicate that road accidents are on the increase. Between January - August 2011, a total of 1,431 deaths have been recorded through the road accidents. This compared with a figure of 1,181 registered for the whole of 2010 is very disturbing.                                                        
 Road accidents have been blamed on several factors. The most notable are:  over speeding, disregard for road signs, lack of vehicle maintenance, drunk- driving, tiredness and illiteracy on the part of drivers among others.
Another major cause of road accidents in recent times could be attributed to the use of mobile phones while driving. This behavior is sending people to their grave because when they talk on the phone, they tend to lose concentration.
Also of concern is the disregard for the following: CONSERVATION, OBSERVATION, ANTICIPATION and TOLERANCE.
Conservation deals with maintaining the speed limit of an environment. For example when entering town, the speed limit is 50km/h which is mostly ignored by motorists. Observation means being cautious of the road in order to break if there is an oncoming activity such as another vehicle or a pedestrian. Anticipation deals with being aware of others apart from yourself using the road and knowing how to prepare yourself for an unexpected turn of events and  tolerance is to have patience and understanding for other drivers because some may infuriate you with the way they drive which will lead you to wonder if they went to driving school or not.
Even though, there have been education and awareness creation through the media in the form of music by some artistes such as Obour ,Jay Ghartey and a few others and adverts by the Road Safety Commission, accidents are still on the increase.
  The Greater Accra Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), ACP Victor Tandoh(Rtd) disclosed that 1,800 lives are lost yearly due to road accidents. He added that the number of casualties recorded had 42% pedestrians and 23% of children below age 10. He further said that 70% of all accidents involved people between the ages of 15 and 55 with the majority being men. Mr Tandoh pointed out that over-speeding is the major cause of accidents thereby accounting for over 70% of the reported cases in the Greater Accra Region.
According to him, “  provisional statistics released by the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit(MTTU) from January to September 2011 indicated that 3,708 crashes were reported  during the period involving 5,684 vehicles resulting in 1,771 injuries and 1,679 deaths.”
On pedestrian accidents, Mr Tandoh said the attitudes of drivers towards pedestrians at the zebra crossing especially are very appalling since most drivers do not care to stop. A vivid example is the Ring Road and the crossing in front of GBC, it is always so busy that the drivers always speed through without any regard for the pedestrians especially the children when they go and return from school and have to use the zebra crossing.
The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Armah Ashietey in his address said “government has embarked on a massive road development programme due to the major role road transport played in the movement of passengers and goods.”
The World Health Organization, according to him has predicted that if nothing is done about the situation by 2020, road traffic injuries will be ranked globally as the third cause of deaths, overtaking dangerous diseases like Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria among others.
“He noted that Ghana’s road transport industry lacked an effective regulatory frame work and coordinated approach to deal with the proliferation of transport unions.”
He continued that this challenge has contributed to easy entry routes characterized by the seemingly incompetent drivers, unworthy commercial vehicles and unavailable institutional check mechanism to ensure better safety standards from transport operations.
It is also very sad and heartbreaking to note that with a country like ours striving to provide basic needs like drinking water, health facilities, electricity, schools among others to the citizens, 1.6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is lost through road accidents.
The keywords deduced from all this information is that we need to do what is right always and help ourselves because the government will try to reduce road accidents but it’s up to the we, the people to stop it completely  with their actions.

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