The Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) in the Northern Region, Mr. Alex Ayatah has expressed concern about the high rate of motor accidents in the region and therefore called on stakeholders to help address the problem.
He blamed the situation on several factors, including the indiscriminate citing of signboards for directions and advertisements in the metropolis.
He therefore called for the establishment of a motor training institute to enable drivers of departments and various agencies to acquire modern skills in riding, driving and interpretation of road signs.
Mr. Ayatah disclosed that his outfit has trained school coordinators in some schools to facilitate the introduction of basic road safety lessons in basic school.
The NRSC boss made the call in an interaction with Citi News in Tamale and indicated that about 167 people lost their lives and over 600 people injured through avoidable motor crashes last year alone.
“These deaths are a drain on the nation’s human resource needs that could have increased productivity and for that matter contribute to national development,” he opined.
He lamented that even though the police were doing well to ensure that motor users complied with motor traffic rules, the problem of political interference was dominant in the area, and often led to non-compliance of traffic regulations.
He, however, called on the Police to step up education on motor traffic regulations, and strictly enforce the laws and appealed to stakeholders, including traditional rulers, to join the crusade in admonishing the people, particularly the youth, who were greatly involved in road crashes to endeavour to wear crash helmets to save themselves in times of accidents.
He further outlined radio programmes, engagement of traditional leaders on the need to allow laws to be enforced and as well as ensure District Assemblies take control and support road safety activities as measures undertaken by his outfit to curb the raising road crashes in the region which he said was destroying productive human resource of the country.
By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana