By Hebrews Pouyeli Kumako
FORMER Member of Parliament for Ketu South, Albert Kwasi Zigah has called for comprehensive reforms in the road transport sector to curb the increasing road fatalities across the country.
He said while nearly 3,000 lives were lost due to road accidents in 2025, Ghana might record more road fatalities this year if stringent measures were put in place to stop the trend.
Quoting provisional statistics from the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) and the Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, Mr Zigah explained that Ghana recorded 1,288 road crashes between January and March this year, which resulted in 457 deaths.
He described the situation as “disturbing unacceptable and a national emergency”.
“The situation is becoming worrisome because whenever someone travel by road in the country, it is as if that person has signed his or her death warrant”, Mr Zigah lamented.
Preventable causes
Mr Zigah attributed many of the road accidents to preventable causes rooted in human behaviors and systemic failures.
He stated that safe driving which extended beyond technical competence was rather significantly influenced by the mental and emotional state of drivers.
Mr Zigah added that several key factors influencing the increasing road fatalities included family and marital pressures affecting the concentration of drivers.
These, according to him were among over tens of factors underlining the causes yet to be unearthed.
He enumerated other factors such as unrealistic daily sales targets imposed by vehicle owners, poor vehicle maintenance culture such as faulty brakes, wornout tyres, driver fatigue, abuse of stimulants and hard drugs and reckless speeding due to weak enforcement of road traffic regulations.
Mr Zigah said driving had no fixed methodology explaning that it rather depended on the cognitive discipline and responsibility of the driver.
He therefore raised concerns about weak monitoring systems within the road transport sector.
Mr Zigah cited lack of continuous surveillance on highways adding that drivers complied to regulations at checkpoints but resort to dangerous practices once they left inspection points.
He called for the establishment of a specialised national road safety task force made up of technical experts to be stationed at the major lorry terminals across the country.
According to him, the task force should have the mandate to conduct pre-departure driver assessment, vechicle road worthiness checks, sobriety verification and passenger safety briefings.
He suggested that members of such a task force should comprise of more people with practical and outstanding excellence in vehicular movement and few technical experts.
“This is the only way we can drastically reduce the needless deaths on our roads”, Mr Zigah stated.
He commended the President Mahama for his efforts to rehabilitate road across the country and called on the various transport unions and other road users including motor riders to do their part to protect lives on our roads.
Mr Zigah also called on the government, road safety institutions as well as passengers to come together to halt the carnage on roads since road safety was a shared rewponsibility.
Source News Volta
