The school comprises a church, the Abossey Okai RC Basic and JHS, Mataheko Basic and JHS and St. Peter Claver School, a French school.

Co-Founder of the Foundation Sarah Nana Yeboah said the project was just the latest the company had undertaken a part of its social responsibility to ensure that children can access to education and proper health care safely.

“Over the years our aim has been to promote quality education and healthcare in the country. And over the past five years we have renovated schools, we have built some, we have built libraries, we have signed about six thousand children onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), we supply school material and we pay school fees for girls,” she said

“I think that making the road safe on this patriotic day is to just give back to society in the little way we can. It’s not going to be a one-day affair; we want to make the business of this country my personal business and the business of our volunteers. It’s about time people of this country take up the responsibilities of this country and help.”

The gesture, she noted, is borne out of the need to address the alarming rate of road crashes involving children.

She added that research indicates that a large number of these accidents are caused by the absence of the zebra crossings.

According to Madam Yeboah, the move will ensure commercial drivers obey motor and traffic regulations to prevent further loss of lives, particularly involving children, on our roads.

“In 2018, as a nurse at Ridge Hospital myself, and after a lot of surveys, research we released showed that road traffic accidents are a major problem in this country. We decided to take an aspect of it, so we decided to go with keeping our children safe on our roads, and this is our theme and campaign for 2018, from educating children on how to use our roads, to educating drivers on how to ply the roads and respect children when they are on the roads.”

She stated that her outfit had partnered with the Road Safety Commission and a few other groups on the project.

“I work with extremely passionate volunteers who are ready to go around the country, anywhere. We are going to do two or three markings every month.

“We are blessed to have the National Road Safety Commission on board, the Department of Urban Roads, a Bloomberg philanthropist, an international NGO and Level 300 students of the Central University on board. We feel that the government of this country has a lot of problems on their heads. We used a little over eight hundred cedis on this project, because of the quality of paint, this one is not going to fade, even if it does we have a maintenance culture and so we are ready to deepen it.”

Rev. Father Delasi Parku, parish priest of Holy Family Catholic Church commended them expressing his belief that the new markings would reduce accidents on the roads.

“It’s a very busy road and there has not been any zebra crossing here and we think it’s good to do it such that drivers will be conscious of the fact that children are crossing. We don’t want to wait till something happens before we look for a remedy, and luckily the Sangy Foundation have volunteered and are doing it at their own cost,” he said.

“It’s a very good initiative and I think its necessary we need it where lots of people cross our roads, because some drivers do not care whether there is a human being crossing or not, they drive anyhow.”

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By: Ann-Shirley Ziwu/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The Assistant Planning Officer at the Regional Office of the National Road Safety Commission, Ms Joan Fafa Ayer,  told journalists that the decline was as a result of extensive public education on road safety.

A total of 26 fatalities were recorded from April to June, representing a decline of 53.57 percent when compared to figures from the same period last year.

Injured persons had also reduced from 191 to 116, representing a decline of 39.27 percent while pedestrian knockdowns fell by 13 percent from 47 to 34 per cent.

The number of vehicles involved in accidents, however, increased from 220 to 257 percent, an increment of 16.82 per cent, and motorbikes also recorded an increment of 32.79 percent from 61 to 81 per cent.

The number of reported cases declined from 156 to 145 percent, a drop by 7.05 per cent.

Ms Ayer said an attitudinal change on the part of commercial motorbike riders remained a major concern and appealed to them to obey traffic regulations and safety rules.

She cautioned drivers to take necessary precautions, especially when driving at night and advised against speeding through rainstorms.

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Source: GNA

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Out of the figure, 3,983 persons sustained various degrees of injury with 1,199 pedestrian knockdowns involving 6,468 vehicles and 1,289 motorbikes.

Mr David Osafo Adonteng, the Director of Planning and Programming at the NRSC, disclosed this at a media briefing to mark this year’s West Africa Road Safety Organisation Day and Fourth United Nations Global Road Safety Week in Accra on Monday.

He said speeding was the cause most deaths on the roads and, therefore, tasked the media, the Police, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and all relevant institutions to join the campaign against speeding.

He urged the stakeholders to tackle the issue of speeding with renewed commitment and strategy, saying; “We can’t sit down for people to perish needlessly, saying, “it’s time to move the agenda to stop the menace”.

Mr Adonteng said the Commission would be more visible and louder at the district, regional and national levels through intensive public education on the dangers of speeding as well as increase advocacy, monitoring and research.

“We are going to hit hard on substandard tyres because they are gradually rearing their ugly heads on this speeding arena, therefore, we will engage the private sector to remove all disabled vehicles from the road,” he said.

He expressed optimism that the NRSC would soon change its status to an authority or agency that would have the power to insist on institutional compliance and standards in order to change things for the better.

He urged the police to improve on the enforcement of road traffic regulations by arresting traffic offenders through the use of information and communication technology and speed cameras to check speeding on the roads.

“Let’s use global practices where you can sit in a room and use an ICT system to monitor activities on the road and apprehend offenders and prosecute them,” he said.

Mr Adonteng tasked the engineers at the Ghana Highway Authority to construct footbridges at the appropriate locations in the cities and urban centres to protect lives and property.

He tasked the media to highlight the dangers of speeding through extensive reportage to create public awareness.

He used the occasion to outdoor new road signs to increase public awareness on the need to observe road traffic regulations and speed limits.

Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, the Executive Director of the Commission, said 60 per cent of all road fatalities were as a result of senseless speeding on the road and, therefore, called for collective efforts by all stakeholders to curb the menace.

She urged motorists to comply with the road safety rules and regulations in order to save precious lives and property.

She advised pedestrians to use footbridges constructed on strategic locations and walk along the roads while facing oncoming traffic to avoid pedestrian knockdown.

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Source: GNA

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According to the Commission, it has identified over-speeding as a major cause of accidents in the country, being responsible for over 60% of them.

Two fatal accidents which occurred over the weekend killed about nineteen people, including four final year trainee nurses.

One of the accidents, which occurred yesterday [Sunday, March 13, 2017] at Gomoa Mpromem, in the Central Region left 15 people dead.

Commenting on the latest development in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show, the Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission, May Obiri Yeboah said more critical measures needed to be put in place to prevent drivers from speeding.

“Since 2007, we set our yearly targets [for reducing death from road accidents]. This year, our target is one thousand, two hundred and eighty, not more than 1,280 people should die. All of us contribute to reducing that target, if I do my education, and sanitization but you as a road user, you do not do your part in bringing accidents down, we cannot achieve our target.”

The Commission in its appraisal of events in 2016 described as “overwhelming” the rate of rate road accidents recorded within the period.

The Commission said it recorded over 11,000 road accidents; about 2,000 more cases from the 2015 figure of about 9,000.

Its statistics indicated that the cases of road accidents in the country surged incredibly in December, owing to election-related events.

Meanwhile, the Police in Apam are optimistic the arrest of the driver alleged to be responsible for the fatal accident at Gomoa Mpromem, will help with in investigations.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @jnyabor

The post NRSC to reduce road accident deaths by 1,000 appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

In an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show, the Public Relations Officer of the DVLA, Kwaku Darko Afari, explained that, DVLA’s mandate, as far as road safety is concerned, does not cover cars plying the road after being assessed and issued roadworthy stickers.

[contextly_sidebar id=”HuoICmdV41DUG4CqTPbcMkwakRyKYt0A”]His comments came on the back of a weekend that saw two car crashes leaving a total of 19 persons dead, with 12 injured at Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region, and Gomoa Mpromem in the Central Region.

Mr. Darko Afari explained that, the causal factors of accidents ultimately comes down to the driver, roads or the vehicle, with the DVLA having some measure of control over the drivers and the state of vehicles.

Since 2011, the DVLA has introduced private vehicle test stations, 13 nationwide, on a Private Public Partnership basis to improve vehicle, Mr. Darko Afari noted, as some of the improvements on his outfit’s side to improve testing procedures and road safety.

He however admitted there were some people who managed to seep through the cracks and get road worthy documents, sometimes fake.

Mr. Darko Afari also said police were also better placed to investigate the sources of the counterfeit road worthy documents and provide a lasting solution to the problem “when the driver of such vehicles are arrested.”

“As soon as that happens, it pushes into the domain of the MTTD who have a secondary responsibility for road safety and who can enforce. If they see a vehicle that does not look like one that should ply our roads, it is their responsibility to quickly arrest the driver and check whether the road worthy is even genuine in the first place. And if it is not genuine, prosecute the person so that it serves as a deterrent to others who might want to do same. When it comes to that, enforcement comes in. So we need to do our bit and the Police MTTD has to do its bit to try and find out if a vehicle is in a poor state.”

“Our responsibilities don’t go that far. Our powers end just after the vehicles and drivers leave our offices. So I am saying that the MTTD officers are always on our roads, and when they see these rickety vehicles, they should arrest them. If it gets to the point where we have to reexamine them again then we take it up.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Police must crack down on rickety cars – DVLA appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to DSP Charles Obiri, the Commander of the Winneba Motor Transport and Traffic Directorate, the accident involved a Sprinter bus with registration number, GE 801-16.

“Yesterday, a Sprinter Bus with the registration number GE 801-16, which had 22 passengers on board, was moving from Obuasi to Accra. When it got to Gomoa Amanfi, between Apam Junction and Winneba Junction, one of the rear tyres burst and it somersaulted,” he said.

“When we arrived, we found that one person had died on the spot; we took the others to the hospital. Four others also passed on later. Those who survived are receiving treatment at the Trauma Hospital at the Winneba Hospital.”

44 die of road accidents in election period

According to the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), a total of 44 people died during Ghana’s electioneering period between December 7 and 10, 2016.

During that period, 100 accident cases were reported with about 157 vehicles involved.

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By: Jeffrey Owuraku Sarpong/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Five dead in accident on Accra-Winneba road appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.