In the wake of the increasing spate of road crashes in Ghana, the Head of Education, Research and Training at the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Alexander Obeng, is calling for the speedy implementation of the traffic automation system to serve as a check on motorists.
He believes the system will make road users comply strictly with road traffic regulations even when they are alone, and help reduce road crashes since there will be sanctions irrespective of where they are.
Supt. Alexander Obeng in an interview said the game-changer is to implement the automation of traffic policing nationwide.
“To scale down preventable incidents of crashes, there are multiplicity of counter-measures to be used. It cannot be only the police. It cannot be only the road engineer. It cannot be only the towing service provider. It cannot only be sensitization. It is the multiplicity of all under the system that the United Nations has proposed for member countries otherwise called safer system. That is where safety is delivered. Therefore, the policy of the state which has been on the shelves should be manifested in a way that you will see traffic police being automated.”
“In that case, it will at all times be at the back of the mind of all motorists that there is a system of detection and high sense of apprehension. If there is high sense of apprehension and the potential road offender knows that there would be sanctions irrespective of where I am, definitely, those behaviours that lead to crashes will begin to go down”.
Supt. Alexander Obeng outlined some other measures that can drastically help reduce road accidents.
“We must ensure we have a robust towing system backing enforcement. We must ensure we have safer roads so that the roads would be eligible and visible at night with marked edges, centre lines and zebra crossing points. There should be dedicated traffic lights that are functioning that will ensure traffic is managed in conjugated traffic prone areas. All these should be enhanced or garnished with sensitization”.
Following the release of data from the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service showing that the Ashanti Region lost more people to road crashes in the first quarter of this year, the Ashanti Regional MTTD Commander says his Department will step up enforcement to reduce road crashes.
Superintendent Emmanuel Adu Boahen said his outfit is seeking to introduce a system where a dedicated team would be assigned to check ‘drunk driving’, especially on weekends.
