Road crashes reduce 3% in 2013 – NRSC
The National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), on Tuesday extended its warmest regards to the motoring public and its stakeholders, including the media, for their continuous support to make roads safer in the course of the year.
It said the Commission raised its road-user education and publicity to create greater awareness on road safety and had several advocacy and engagement sessions with stakeholders and captains of industries.
A press statement issued and signed by the Head of Communications at NRSC, Mr Kwame Koduah Atuahene, said key among these were workshops for magistrates and prosecutors on the new Road Traffic Regulations L.I. 2180, 2012.
It said the Commission also held trainer of trainers’ workshop for School Health Education Programme Co-ordinators on the use of road safety teaching manuals for basic schools, as well as workshops for metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives and their co-ordinating directors and other professionals on how to mainstream road safety into their development programmes.
“We again initiated a programme to ban the importation of substandard tyres as a major road safety risk while we launched the ‘Be Alert..Look out for other road users’ National Pedestrian Safety Campaign to raise the profile of pedestrian deaths in the course of the year” it said.
The statement said 2013 had been relatively better due to reductions in road traffic crashes, deaths, and injuries adding that statistics available to the Commission showed reductions of three per cent, nine per cent and 9.5 per cent in the number of crashes reported, persons killed and persons injured respectively between January and November this year as compared to the situation last year.
It said: “This situation is unacceptable but we remain motivated to further reduce traffic related deaths and injuries by 50 per cent by the year 2020 in line with the Decade of Action and National Road Safety Strategy III targets”.
It quoted Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, Executive Director of the Commission as saying: “December is a high risk month for road crashes often as a result of the fatal three risk factors of speeding, drink-driving and driver fatigue. I wish to appeal to all road users to be cautious during this yuletide. Just imagine what your family and friends would do without you this Christmas and in the New Year before you engage in any risky behaviour on the road.
“Road Safety is everyone’s responsibility. You need to arrive in 2014 alive but first must be responsible as a driver, pedestrian and a passenger. Let us celebrate this season in moderation so that together we can arrive safely in 2014”.
Source: GNA