Road safety: Are drivers becoming more careful?

 Stakeholders including the Ghana Police Service, the National Road Safe­ty Authority, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority launched yet another road safety campaign in November 2022 as the Christmas and New Year festivities ap­proached.

The “Stay Alive; Gyae Obonsam Agyuma No,” cru­sade was to help reduce road accidents in the Eastern Region and beyond as crashes tended to increase during the yuletide.

Road experts maintain that deaths and injuries could have been avoided if drivers observed road regulations but it appears only a handful of them {drivers} and road users heed this caution.

Even before the 2022 Christmas celebrations start­ed, a number of road acci­dents had been recorded, many of which might have been caused by driver negli­gence and bad roads.

Although the impact of the 2022 road safety campaign is yet to manifest, I believe drivers are becoming more careful on our roads. Re­flecting on happenings in my locality as of January 5, 2023, I am convinced there was less ‘tragedy’ during the festive season.

This notwithstanding, the road safety campaigns should be an all-year activity. Public education on bad driving hab­its should not be intensified only on ‘special occasions’ or when sponsors secure enough funds to launch campaign.

Drivers should constantly be reminded that it is not safe to answer phone calls when driving.

No matter what speed one is driving at, mobile phones remain a distractive element. Apart from making voice calls, some drivers tend to bury their head behind the steer­ing wheel to respond to text messages while in traffic.

Already, there are fines for drivers who breach road traf­fic regulations and I wish to encourage the police to apply those sanctions to the letter, especially when a driver’s carelessness leads to loss of lives.

While at it, I encourage stakeholders to push for the repair of all bad roads. Those without adequate furniture, including street lights and proper markings for safe driv­ing should be restored while those which require dualisa­tion should be completed in time.

By Josephine Nyorkor Ntreh & Serwaa Marfo,

Ghana Institute of Journalism.

Accra.