2330 Killed In Road Accidents

Approximately 2,330 people died while 13,272 people sustained serious injuries in road traffic crashes in the country in 2011. Giving the statistics, the Mayor of Kumasi, Samuel Sarpong, attributed the gruesome road accidents to human errors, vehicle breakdowns, non-road worthy vehicles and environmental factors like poor weather and road conditions. The Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) disclosed that �statistics in Ghana indicates that disabled trucks and abandoned vehicles contribute 21.8% of fatal road accidents.� He therefore praised the Road Safety Management Services Limited for collaborating with the police to train people to ensure orderliness on the road and avoid preventable deaths caused by vehicular accidents. Mr. Sarpong was speaking during the passing-out ceremony of 200 road safety management task force staff at the Police Depot at Patase in Kumasi last Saturday. The newly-recruited road safety management task force would, among other things, ensure good customer service traffic management, help barricade or cordon off accident scenes and erect temporal advance warning lights to warn road users and participate in community policing/traffic and crime management. Daniel Awuaku, Brong Ahafo Regional boss, National Road Safety Commission, on his part also said statistics available to him indicated that 11,400 road crashes occurred annually across the country. Out of this number, he noted, 14,500 injuries and 2000 deaths were recorded annually, disclosing that in other words, �at least 6 people are killed on our roads everyday or one person in four hours.� Mr. Awuaku disclosed that the Ashanti Region had the highest death toll as regards road accidents, with a provisional figure of 453 people killed in 2162 accidents last year. This frightening statistics, he said, should be the concern of all and sundry, adding that factors such as drunk driving, inappropriate speeding, wrongful overtaking, overloading, fatigue driving, poor vision of drivers and disregard for road traffic regulations also caused accidents. Mr. Awuaku commended the management of the Road Safety Management Services Limited for taking a bold step in training these new staff to help bring sanity to the roads and save human lives.