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The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has been advised to subject prospective drivers to mental checks before issuing them with licenses.

Mrs. Theodosia Jackson, a road safety advocate and Principal of Jackson College of Education, said this was necessary to ensure sanity on the road, to help protect life and property.

“The way and manner some drivers demonstrate sheer indiscipline, recklessness and near ‘madness’ on the road, putting the lives of passengers and pedestrians at risk must be a concern to all,” she noted.

Mrs. Jackson, an accident survivor, who was speaking at the launch of the “Fifth Annual Road Safety” campaign in Kumasi, said the rate of accidents in the country was unacceptable.

T he Police Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) estimates that a total of 128 lives perished in road accidents in the Ashanti Region between January and September, this year.

Last year, a total of 191 deaths were recorded out of 930 accidents, involving 1, 362 vehicles within the same period.

The road safety campaign is being spearheaded by Micjoy Advertising, an advertising consultancy firm, National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), and Jackson College of Education.

It is designed to create the needed awareness on road safety ahead of the Yuletide through educational seminars and workshops, as well as the formation of road safety clubs.

Mrs. Jackson called on stakeholders to remain committed to the cause of bringing down the incidence of road accidents.

Michael Nana Ampong, Executive Director of Micjoy Advertising, expressed worry at productive lives lost through road crashes on yearly basis.

A study by the NRSC, he said, had proved that the region records not less than 30 road accidents per day, a development that ranks Ashanti as one of the accident-prone regions in the West African sub-region.

He advocated the banning of the sale of alcoholic beverages at lorry terminals, to check drunk-driving on the part of commercial drivers.

Nana Ampong also expressed worry at the way traders had taken over pavements and said this put the lives of pedestrians at risk.