The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) on Thursday, November 12, 2021, launched a road safety campaign intended to reduce road crashes by 15%.
The campaign ‘Stay Alive’ is intended to change the attitude of drivers towards overspeeding, wrongful overtaking, driving tired, and jumping red lights.
The campaign intends to also advocate against the non-wearing of seat belts, non-wearing of crash helmets.
The NRSA and other stakeholders will embark on outreach to communities, schools, churches, and lory stations to educate and ensure compliance.
The Motor and Traffic and Transport Department will be made to deploy ICT systems to regulate the activities of drivers and road users.
There would also be radio, television, and print media campaigns to also educate people.
As part of the measures put in place to ensure that the campaign succeeds, people who are caught driving drunk are laudable to a minimum of 250 penalty units equivalent to Ghc3,000 and not exceeding 500 penalty units which are equivalent to Ghc6,000 or not to a term of imprisonment less than 1 year and not exceeding 2 years or both.
Drivers who also drive tired are liable to a minimum of a fine of not more than 25 penalty units equivalent to Ghc300 or a term of imprisonment of not more than 30 days.
For drivers who engage in overtaking will get a minimum fine of 2000 penalty units equivalent to Ghc24,000 or a term of imprisonment not exceeding 5 years or both.
The campaign is in collaboration with the Prudence Foundation and Safe Steps Road Safety Africa.
Speaking at the launch, Minister for Transport, Mr. Kwaku Ofori Asiamah said Ghana has over the years recorded high road traffic crashes and casualties which seem to be very unfortunate because it was not supposed to be so.
He indicated that most drivers drive carelessly and recklessly which ends up killing many innocent souls.
According to Mr. Ofori Asiamah, the media must intensively advocate more on road safety measures since that will contribute to the reduction of road accidents.
He later advised drivers to also adhere to road safety measures which will help save lives and also prevent accidents.
On his part, the Director-General of the NRSA Ing. Mary Obiri-Yeboah stated that road accidents have become a public health crisis.
She was of the view that we have to find solutions to the situation.
She disclosed that between January and October, this year, over 2,300 and 12,800 people have been killed and injured respectively.
The figure she noted represents 1.6 percent of GDP and $160 million is also lost to don’t crashes every year.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
