Mr. Alexander Ayata, Director of Research Monitoring and Evaluation, National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has called on drivers to promptly remove broken down vehicles from the road as they contributed to road crashes.
Mr Ayata noted that broken down vehicles contributed to 3.8 percent of death and 2.9 percent of injuries from the recorded road crashes in Ghana.
He said this during the official launching of a towing agreement between the Joint Association of Port Transport Unions (JAPTU) and the Road Safety Management Service Limited (RSMSL) a subsidiary of Jospong Group of Companies.
He indicated that reported cases of road crashes in Ghana between January and August 2022, saw a decline as a total of 1,060 crashes were documented compared to the 1,594 within the same period in 2021.
He said even though the data available to the Authority indicated that there has been some reduction in crashes, it was important that drivers contributed to a further decrease.
Mr. Ayata added that 1,650 died, with 1,406 injuries, and 1,942 knockdowns during January and August this year.
He urged drivers to be careful on the roads especially as the year was getting to an end as that was an accident-prone period, reiterating that they must rest 30 minutes after every four hours of driving while avoiding the intake of substances with the aim of keeping themselves up even when they were tired as that could contribute to road crashes.
Mr. Ibrahim Musah, JAPTU General Secretary, on his part, said his outfit was made up of 12 unions made up of nine and three, Ghanaian and landlocked countries groupings respectively adding that it has over 4,000 haulage trucks that plied the country’s roads.
Mr. Musah said to help reduce the impact of broken-down trucks on the road safety campaign, JAPTU came into an agreement with the RSMSL to tow its member’s broken-down trucks to safer grounds at an annual registration fee of GHs450.00 per truck.
He said as part of the agreement, the Company was to repair minor mechanical faults that might develop on such trucks on the road, adding that 10 percent of the registration fee would also go into running the activities of the Association.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Kwesi Fori (Rtd.), who is the RSMSL National Coordinator said the Company has the mandate to partner with others such as JAPTU to tow vehicles and to reduce road crashes in Ghana.
He said a toll-free number, 0800-772-772 was available 24 hours for the drivers to call whenever they experienced a breakdown.