Sharp decline of deaths through road accidents

Mr Nobel John Appiah, Executive Director of Road Safety Commission, (RSC) said there had been a sharp decline in the number of deaths through road accidents in the country.

Mr Appiah said at a press conference in Accra on Friday that 6,931 persons died through road accidents in the country from 1998 to 2002.

The number of deaths recorded between January and March 2003 was 331; with Ashanti Region recording 98 deaths while greater Accra had 93.

The number of the injured from 1998 to 2002 was 54,698 and that of January to March this year was 1,852.

He gave the number of vehicles involved to have been 60,391 in road accidents from 1998 to 2002, while that of January to March 2003 was 4,078.

Mr Appiah said the conference was to announce the presence of members of the Zambian Road Safety Commission in the country to study the state of affairs of Ghana's road safety.

He said the coming of the Officers was a follow up to a suggestion made some time in the year 2000 about the need for African countries to understudy each other's road safety systems in order to prevent road accidents.

He said for two years now the National Road Safety Commission had begun a road safety campaign, which the Zambians have just started and, therefore, wanted to have look at its structure and also exchange ideas with RSC.

Mr Appiah said the only thing that was not enforced in Ghana but which was enforced in Zambia was the enforcement of laws on the use of mobile phones and seat belts in vehicles and jumping of traffic lights.

He said the 1952 Road Traffic Act was being revised to ensure that strict road safety rules and regulations were adhered to.

Mr Winston Mwandila, Director of National Road Safety Council in Zambia, said African countries needed to change the road structures and cooperate with each other to fight the carnage on the roads.

He said they have studied areas such as the drivers' training, policing, and road safety stakeholders among other areas.

He said in Zambia, road safety was put into school curriculum for children to learn road laws to ensure that traffic regulations start from the grassroots.

Mr Mwandila said drivers were arrested when they jumped traffic lights, did not use seat belts, adding that taxis that fuelled their vehicles with passengers in them was also prohibited and the use of mobile phones in vehicles illegal.

He expressed the hope that the interaction would continue.