Road accidents claim 186 lives in Central Region

One hundred and eighty-six (186) people were killed in road crashes in the Central Region as at November 2018 as against 180 recorded over the same period last year.

In all, it recorded a reduction of 825 road accidents as against 902 in the previous year.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Foster Gyasi of the Regional Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) revealed this at the Regional launch of a road safety campaign in Cape Coast on Tuesday.

The campaign dubbed: “Ekwanso dwoodwoo, m3y3 m’afamudze, sought to scale-up public education on road safety measures to drastically reduce road fatalities.

ASP Gyasi said that the number of vehicles involved in the accidents increased from 1,274 in 2017 to 1,280 indicating a surge of four.

On injuries, it registered an increase to 1,431 in 2018 as against 1,327 in 2017 as pedestrian knockdowns reduced from 290 to 227 over the same period.

He mentioned over-speeding, drunk driving, fatigue, mechanical faults;  inexperienced driving, disabled vehicles, poor visibility at night, tyre bursts, wrongful overtaking and overloading of vehicles as some of the contributory factors to road accidents.

ASP Gyasi encouraged all transport operators to do background checks on drivers before recruiting them and conduct periodic training and screening for fitness to maintain high standards of professionalism in the industry.

They must help whip up education on driver, passenger and pedestrian safety to prevent the spate of road accidents, especially during the Yuletide.

Ms Linda Affotey-Annang, Acting Regional Head of the Commission, gave the assurance that the department would double its efforts through rigorous educational and awareness creation campaigns to enlighten the public and intensify enforcement of laws to reduce road fatalities.

He said the Commission, in partnership with stakeholders, would not relent in its efforts to educate drivers and noted that road safety was a shared responsibility.

Source: GNA