Road accidents in Ashanti Region reduce
Road accidents in the Ashanti Region reduced from the 1,791 cases recorded in 2012 to 1,390 cases in 2013.
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Three hundred and six people lost their lives in 2012 against 280 in 2013. A total of 2,213 people sustained various degrees of injuries in 2012 as against 1,495 in 2013
Additionally, 352 pedestrians were knocked down in 2012, while 197 were knocked down in 2013 and those accidents involved 761 commercial vehicles, 449 private ones and 130 motorbikes.
The Ashanti Regional Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Mr Thomas Bismark Boakye, in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Kumasi, said the region was given a national target of 428 on fatalities but the region did its best and recorded 280, representing 65.4 per cent reduction.
He said the commission was working hard to further reduce the national target of 381 for 2014 to 250, representing 65.6 per cent reduction, and called for the support of all for further reduction.
Mr Boakye admitted that though the NRSC reduced road accidents in 2013, it failed a little in the last quarter of the year when about 37 people died in four separate accidents that occurred at Dominase on the Kumasi-Obuasi road, Juaso on the Accra-Kumasi highway, Asonomaso Nkwanta on the Kumasi-Mampong road and Mfensi on the Kumasi-Sunyani road.
He said his outfit would ensure 80 per cent enforcement of the road safety regulations and added that the 20 per cent would be used on driver education.
Mr Boakye gave an assurance that his outfit would intensify its fight against road accidents and indicated that the NRSC office had introduced road safety ambassadors such as Peace FM’s Gabby Adu-Gyamfi to reduce road accidents.
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He said the NRSC offices in the region had collaborated with the Sonnie Badu Ministries to organise a gospel show at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi on January 31, 2014 to pray to God to intervene in the unusual road accidents that might occur in 2014.
He also said the NRSC would collaborate with the National Drivers Academy (NDA), the police and the Driver and Vehicle License Authority (DVLA) to fight the menace.
He, however, appealed to all stakeholders in road safety and the general public to help in the fight against road accidents.