The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has served a final warning to some four transport operators in particular over unsuccessful attempts to get them to ensure that the drivers of their Toyota mini-buses reduce their speed during long journeys.
According to a statement signed by the NRSA Acting Director-General, Davis Osafo Adonteng, this has come about as a result of several complaints concerning the recklessness of drivers of these vehicles on highways, such as the Accra-Kumasi Highway.
“The Authority has received numerous complaints from road users including the Ministry of National Security on the incessant high speed and reckless overtaking by drivers of Toyota Mini-Buses on our major corridors, particularly, the Kumasi-Accra Highway,” the statement said.
It also added that it had been forced to make this final notice to the four transport operators because they had failed to keep their part of the bargain after an earlier meeting to address these concerns.
The operators are the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, Accra; 2M Express, Accra; OA Travel & Tours, Accra; and the Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council, Accra.
“Subsequently, the Authority has this year held meetings with the under-listed operators of these transport services on the affected routes on the need to institute internal safety controls including training and real-time tracking of their drivers to minimise the risk associated with the unsafe practices but to no avail.
“The Authority has a duty imposed by the NRSA Act 2019 (Act 993) to reduce road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths by such measures including the issuance of cautions, notices, and directives to improve the quality of transport service or correct irregularities in transport operations to prevent or minimise road traffic crashes, injuries, and deaths.
“Given the above, the Authority wishes to serve notice to the above transport operators that, without an immediate improvement in the quality of services complained of, that is, high speeds and reckless overtaking, the Authority will be compelled to initiate the necessary administrative protocols to impose restrictions on the movement of their commercial mini-buses to intra-city services or routes not exceeding 40 kilometres,” the statement said.
In July this year, GhanaWeb carried a story on how 1,300 persons were killed in road accidents in Ghana between January 2022 to June 2022.
According to the NRSA, aside from the deaths recorded, 7,997 people also sustained various degrees of injuries.
“… a total of 7,687 crashes were reported from January to June 2022, involving 13,248 Vehicles. 1,300 persons were killed, and 7,997 persons sustained various degrees of injuries. In the same period, a total of 1,356 pedestrians were knocked down,” portions of the provisional statistics for road accidents released by the Authority read.
Also, the NRSA indicated that the number of accidents and the causalities recorded so far for 2022 was an improvement on the figures recorded within the same period in 2021, where a total of 8,188 crashes were recorded, with a total of 1,454 deaths and 8,188 injuries.
“Comparing the period of January to June 2022 to the same period last year, there have been decreases in the number of cases reported (-6.12%), vehicles involved (5.19%), pedestrians knocked down (-7.76%), number of persons killed (-10.59%) and persons injured (- 2.33%),” it said.
Read the full statement below:
EA/SEA
David Osafo Adonten is the acting Director General of the NRSA