Players in road safety have this week been engaged in a two day workshop re-examining the design of roads in the city and how to make them pedestrian friendly.
According to the 2015 global status report on road safety, the total number of road traffic deaths has plateaued at 1.25 million deaths per year with the highest road traffic fatality rates in low-income countries.
While admitting human factors like drink driving, fatigue and distraction are major risk factors, it emerged that the design of roads in most parts of the world contributes to high fatalities.
And pedestrians are the worst hit.
The workshop therefore exposed road designers, planners and engineers to simple but efficient designing tools that can help reduce fatalities on roads in the country.
They visited the Okponglo traffic light intersection which has been until recently a death trap, claiming lives mostly of students of the University of Ghana. It emerged that the intersection could be made a lot more safer for pedestrians without necessarily constructing a footbridge as proposed by the former Mayor Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije.
Listen to how Citi News’ Caleb Kudah captures the interactions of the experts in this report:
–
By: citifmonline.com/Ghana