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Regional News of Sunday, 24 October 2010

Source: GNA

Cowbell partners NRSC to organise health walk

Tamale, Oct. 24, GNA - The National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) in collaboration with Promasidor Ghana Limited producers of Cowbell have organised a walk to raise awareness on road safety in Tamale.

The event dubbed, 93Walk for health stay with Cowbell," seeks to educate road users in the Metropolis on road safety regulations to ensure sanity on the road.

Mr Thomas Bismark Boakye, Northern Regional Manager of the NRSC, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said that the walk was part of the strategies by NRSC to reduce the high spate of motor accidents in the area.

"NRSC has noticed that road safety education is low in the Region and this has aided in the increase in road crushes in the region. This walk aims at rekindling the need for road safety awareness to complement the national target of reducing cases of road accidents to a single digit", he said.

Mr Boakye took the participants through lessons on how to walk safely on the road; the use of zebra crossing; wearing of helmet and the meanings of some road signs.

He explained that the exercise was so crucial to the nation since Ghana continued to lose human beings, who were in the productive sector of the economy and were contributing to national development.

Families, he said, also lost most of their breadwinners resulting in the loss of livelihood for members of their families and dependents, "many children cannot continue with their education and others are battling to pay for their education as a result of the loss of their breadwinners", he added.

Mr Boakye announced that the month of November would be dedicated to promote road safety education saying that the Agency would organise cycling competition among the various keep fit clubs.

He said the NRSC would soon start a monthly educational campaign for drivers in the Metropolis as part of steps to reduce road accidents adding that the Commission had instituted an award scheme in a form of fuel coupons and cash prizes for drivers, motor riders and pedestrian, who obeyed road regulations as a way of motivating them to stick to road safety regulations.

He cautioned them not to drink and drive and to regularly maintain their vehicles before putting them on the road.

Mr Boakye said that if drivers were to follow road regulations the rampant road accidents would be brought to the barest minimum.

Mr Patrick Deletsu, a Sales and Marketing Manager of Promasidor Ghana Limited, said the Company was ready to support NRSC in it quest to reduce road fatalities since the nation lost huge sums of money and resources due to road accidents.

He said plans were advanced to support similar exercises in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region and appealed to motorists to stop and rest whenever the