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Dr Oween Kaluwa, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Representative for Ghana on Friday called on the law enforcement agencies to enforce laws to change road user behaviour to reduce road injuries.

“Changing road user behaviour is a critical component of the holistic Safe Systems approach and adopting and enforcing good laws is effective in changing road user behaviour on key risk factors for road traffic injuries- speed, drink-driving, distracted driving, and the failure to use helmets, seat-belts and child restraints properly.

“Enforcement of the laws is also essential to the successes at reducing injuries”, he said.
Dr Kaluwa made the call at a press briefing in Accra to end the week-long United Nations Global Road Safety Week 2017 on the theme “Slow Down, Save Lives”.

The Campaign, which started on Monday May 8, would end on Sunday May 14 2017.
It is focused on managing speed and what could be done to address this key risk factor for road traffic deaths and injuries.

Speed contributes to around one-third of all fatal road traffic crashes in high-income countries, and up to half in low- and middle-income countries.

According to the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), speeding contributes to 60 per cent of road accidents in Ghana.
Between January and April 2017, the NRSC recorded over 4,000 accidents, involving more than 6,000 vehicles that resulted in over 700 deaths, and more than 1,000 motorcycle accidents, due to speeding.

He said the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2010 that led to the establishment of the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020).

He said the resolution called on Member States to take the necessary steps to make their roads safer, and for World Health Organisation (WHO) to monitor the situation through its Global status report on road safety series.
This report, he said, a third in the series, serves as a toll to assess the impact of changes three years into the Decade of Action and to highlight where more action is needed.

Dr Kaluwa, said the WHO developed ‘Save Lives’ a Technical Road Safety Package that takes a holistic and comprehensive approach to addressing road safety.

He said the package was made up of five pillars namely: Road Safety Management, Safer Roads and Mobility, Safer Vehicles, Safer Road Users and Post-Crash Response.

He commended the various road safety units of the MMDAs and other civil society organisations including; Amend and the NRSC for their effort and drive to make the roads safe for all road users.
Ms Christine Evans-Klock, the United Nations Resident Coordinator called on the media to propagate the message to the populace to adhere to road traffic and regulations to curb deaths and injuries.

Mr Osei Kufuor, the Initiative Coordinator of Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA)-Bloomberg Initiative Global Road Safety Unit said the AMA has ensured that speed reduction signs were put up around schools, churches and commercial areas to reduce speeding.