National Road Safety Authority to hold regulatory bodies responsible for reckless licensed drivers

The National Road Safety Authority is putting measures in place to regulate the issuance of licensing for drivers, to avoid indiscipline on the country's roads. This is to make sure that the regulatory bodies put only qualified drivers on the road.

Speaking on Zylofon FM morning show, the Statecraft, Engineer David Osafo Adonteng who is the Director of Planning and Programmes at NRSA, said “We are now the authority and have been mandated to hold responsible any institution that gives or approves drivers on our road, in case of reckless driving or accidents leading to fatality. We have to question them and find out if the driver involved in the accident has gone through the right procedure in acquiring his license.”

He maintained that if the mandate of the NRSA is to ensure safety on the road, then it is also appropriate to interrogate the process leading to granting drivers the documents to drive, adding that the situation where drivers plying their trade without proper documentation can no longer be encouraged as “we are going to ensure that even passengers are empowered to demand from drivers to see their license, failure to produce means that driver should not be allowed to work. Those things must stop and must belong to the past” he told Noel Nutsugah.

Engineer David Osafo Adonteng also indicated that driver union bodies henceforth, shall also be interrogated to find out the processes used in recruiting drivers to work under them. This he said will enable the NRSA to know the modus of employing or accepting drivers who carry the GPRTU or other unions’ logo.

“GPRTU for instance have drivers working with them, we have to know how they recruit them so that if there is any accident involving their cars, we will hold them too accountable. Our mandate must not be to advise or recommend, that was in the past but now we will bite”

On long-distance and cross-country drivers, Engineer David Osafo Adonteng insisted there must be strict adherence to the policy of each bus or truck having two drivers on board. This will make it possible for the standby driver to take over after the first one covered a certain kilometers of the journey, to reduce fatigue which leads to “some of these accidents being witnessed on our roads.”

“The law prescribed speed limit devices to be installed so we will make sure {they} now enforce that. It will check over speeding. Then again there must be two drivers onboard every long-distance bus.”

"Because we at NRSA have taken the matter seriously, students from the basic level now, have road safety as a subject to be taught so as to create awareness from infancy. We believe this is one of the avenues we can use to drum home the importance of road safety in the country," he opined.