We need more education on road safety
We laud the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) for the theme it has chosen for its 2016 Road Safety Campaign, which is: “Pedestrian and Passenger Safety”.
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While drivers contribute a lot to accidents and road crashes on our roads, we believe that pedestrians and passengers are also to blame for some of the crashes.
Passengers contribute to crashes when they urge on drivers to speed or when they decline to comment on reckless driving or report drivers who drive carelessly or drink and drive, thereby putting their lives at risk.
Pedestrians, on the other hand, cause accidents and road crashes when they ignore traffic signals, cross the road at dangerous and unauthorised points or exhibit one form of carelessness or another when they cross the road.
The Daily Graphic, however, thinks that the launch of the road safety campaign has come quite late in the day, as Easter is just around the corner. Although the Executive Director of the NRSC, Ing May Obiri-Yeboah, said the commission ran all-year programmes and campaigns for best road safety practices, we believe that if the campaign had been launched much earlier, it would have been the best.
This is because during periods such as Easter, a lot of people travel across the length and breadth of the country, and in order to cash in on the volumes of passengers, drivers tend to throw all caution to the wind and are at their careless best, ignoring all road signs.
Many drivers in Ghana, for instance, do not observe the zebra crossing rule which puts a demand on them to stop once pedestrians are ready to cross or step onto the crossing. In most cases, the drivers rather speed up when they see pedestrians at the roadside waiting to cross to the other side.
Elsewhere in developing countries, pedestrians only need to approach a zebra crossing and oncoming vehicles stop even before they get close because they know the implication of knocking down a pedestrian.
Here in Ghana, however, some drivers, as well as motor cyclists, even jump the red light when pedestrians have the green light to cross, thereby causing needless injuries and death.
There have been many hit-and-run cases on our roads and the killer drivers sometimes go free, even if they are apprehended later.
Our worry is that there are many pedestrians on our roads during festivities, some returning from church services or other social gatherings. Many of such pedestrians ignore traffic signals or walk in the middle of the road, especially where there are no pedestrian walkways.
Drivers and pedestrians alike, therefore, need to receive constant education on how they should conduct themselves on the road in certain situations to curtail needless deaths.
Some passengers insist on getting on board vehicles that are full because of the shortage of commercial vehicles during such periods and decline to caution drivers who flout traffic regulations for fear of being asked to come off before they arrive at their destinations.
All of us, therefore, need to exercise extreme caution during this Easter period, so that we avoid needless deaths and injuries.
Meanwhile, we reiterate the need for the NRSC and all stakeholders in road safety to make constant education on the use of the roads a priority. Those who break road traffic rules must also be made to face the full rigours of the law.