Road accidents cost nation 300 million dollars annually

Mr Noble Appiah, Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), on Thursday said road accidents cost the nation over 300 million dollars every year.

"Road accidents account for an average of six deaths everyday, 10,000 serious and minor injuries annually and damage to roads, expensive vehicles and private as well as national property," he said.

Speaking at a two-day seminar on defensive driving Mr Appiah said the NRSC has, therefore, designed a five-year strategic programme focused on seven main problematic areas to curb road accidents in the country.

The seminar organized by Toptech Drive Consult Limited for 30 drivers from private and public organisations is to train the participants in defensive driving techniques, driving laws, rules and regulation, vehicular insurance and registration and first aid.

Mr Appiah said the five-year programme would focus on sustainable training for drivers, pedestrians, children, medical staff and other stakeholders in the road transport sector with the view to curbing accidents and saving lives.

He said drivers cause 90 per cent of road accidents with most of the deaths involving passengers on commercial vehicles.

"Owing to poor rescue operations and lack of first aid skill in drivers, 80 per cent accident victims die before reaching the hospital," he said.

Mr Appiah said this is a reflection of poor driver training, stemming out of the erroneous notion that driving is for school dropouts and illiterates.

"We must understand that lives and expensive vehicles are usually entrusted into the hands of drivers," he said. "There is, therefore, the need to place importance on sustainable training and re-training of drivers if we are to prevent accidents and save lives and property."

Mr Appiah said vehicular population increases by 10 per cent annually and results in a corresponding five per cent increase in road accidents.

"In 1996 vehicular population in Ghana was 135,000. Now it stands at 520,000 and threatens to increase to 720,000 in five years," he said.

"If we do not put in combating measures 20,000 people would die from road accidents in the next five years."

Mr Appiah noted that the state of the country's roads plays an insignificant role in road accidents.

"Seventy per cent of accidents occur on flat roads," he said, and identified over-speeding as the main cause in road accidents.

"There is need to develop speed limit mechanisms to check over-speeding.

"Research has shown that victims of accidents involving a vehicle running at 32 kilometres per hour have 95 per cent chance to survive, at 48 kilometres per hour, victims have 65 per cent chance of survival," he said.

"Most commercial vehicle travel at over 80 kilometres per hour, which is deadly."

He said five regions - Greater-Accra, Western, Eastern, Ashanti and Central - account for over 70 per cent of accidents in the country and 80 per cent of road accidents occur on five major roads. These are the Aflao-Elubo, Accra-Kumasi, Kumasi-Sunyani-Gornokrom, Koforidua-Bonsu-Accra and Kumasi-Mampong-Tamale roads.

"Between January and March this year, 300 people died from road accidents nationwide," he said. "Out of the figure, 64 four died in the Eastern region alone and 57 in Accra."

In a speech read on his behalf, the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Felix Owusu-Agyapong called on transport unions and organisations to make budgetary allocations for regular training of their drivers.

He warned that transport-regulating bodies in collaboration with the law courts would soon initiate measures for effective control and surveillance of drivers through the suspension of drivers' license, withdrawal, revocation and other sanctions to stem indiscipline on the road.

Mr Owusu-Agyapong appealed to driving schools to organise programmes on concessionary terms and fees in order to impart defensive driving skills to motorists.

Mr Justice Amegashie, Director of Vehicle Licensing Division (VELD) said measures are underway to curb the proliferation of fake licenses and roadworthiness certificates.

He said VELD would soon open a Customer Service Unit to provide information to the public with the view to helping them to avoid dealers in fake transport documents who loiter around VELD.

Mr Cecil Garbrah, Chief Executive Officer of Toptech, said the training programme would be extended to commercial drivers in all regions beginning from Aflao next month.

The programme will be carried out in collaboration with the Ghana Private Road Transport Union.