The Upper West Regional office of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has constituted a Regional Road Safety Taskforce to consolidate the efforts of the authority and its partners in fighting road crashes in the region.
The members of the taskforce to be chaired by the Upper West Regional Minister included: NRSA, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Ghana National Fire Service, and the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD).
Others were: National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Red Cross Society, and the National Ambulance Service (NAS).
The NRSA constituted the committee during the fourth quarter stakeholders meeting in Wa to assess the performance of the authority in the fourth quarter of 2022 in the region.
Participants at the meeting included representatives of the MTTD, Red Cross Society, DVLA, NADMO, Ghana Education Service, and the NAS among others.
Speaking at the meeting, Mr Kwame Owusu Abrokwa, the Upper West Regional Head of the NRSA, stressed the need for effective collaboration among the stakeholder in curbing road crashes in the region.
He expressed worry that children were seriously at risk of road crashes due to their risk of crossing roads to and from schools without the assistance of any adult.
He also observed the way children were “packed” in school buses exposed them to serious risk in the case of an accident.
“The school children are packed in the buses like sardines and if there is any accident it will be very fatal”, Mr Abrokwa said.
He also emphasized the need for proper coordination between the NRSA, Fire Service, Police Service, and Ambulance Service in responding to accident cases for effective management of accident cases at the scenes.
In a presentation at a stakeholders meeting, Mr Michael Oppong Kyekyeku, the Assistant Upper West Regional Planning Manager of the NRSA, said they had achieved a reduction in recorded cases of road crashes, Injuries, and Deaths (CIDs) in the region in the quarter under review.
He said the authority recorded 23 reported cases of road crashes in the region in the fourth quarter of 2022 while 42 cases were recorded in the same period in 2021 representing a 45.2 per cent reduction.
Also, 8 deaths and 30 injuries were recorded in the first quarter of 2022 as against 20 deaths and 73 injuries recorded in the same period in 2021 representing 60 per cent and 59 per cent reductions in 2022 respectively.
He said the success chalked in 2022 in the fight against road crashes was due to intensified ‘Stay Alive’ educational activities.
Some of these activities included engagements with transport operators, Cando (tricycle) riders, the leadership of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, motor dealers, and close collaboration with other stakeholder institutions among others.
Other contributing factors he identified were: operation Police Action against Rider Indiscipline (operation ‘PARI’); training for Cando riders; and enforcement of Road Traffic Regulations.
Mr Kyekyeku explained that: “disregard for traffic signals and road signs, overloading, abuse of road medians, deplorable nature of some sections of the roads, use of worn-out tyres, and broken down vehicles on the roads” were some factors impeding their efforts in curbing road accidents in the region.
He observed that the authority would intensify its campaign against road crashes despite the challenges it faced to reduce the incidents of road accidents in the region to the barest minimum.
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