43 per cent of road accident victims are pedestrians
Statistics provided by the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) indicate that nearly 43 per cent of people who suffer deaths and injuries on the roads are pedestrians.
A lot of factors such as the lack of pedestrian crossings have been associated to the phenomenon.
In its bid to reduce if not eliminate road fatalities, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has been set up by the Government of Ghana to develop, promote and coordinate the National Road Safety Strategy.
One of the core functions of the NRSC is to break the increasing accidents, fatalities and injuries, and create a basis for concrete, sustainable crash reduction in the country.
Although the NRSC has implemented a lot of strategies to reduce road accident fatalities, not much is being done on the part of motorists and passengers alike.
Down the streets of Accra, it is easy to see pedestrians crossing the road, with little consideration for their safety.
Executive Director of the NRSC, Noble John Appiah, believes that there are some ways that can be adopted to reduce, if not stop pedestrian deaths.
One of the ways, he noted, was for a ban to be placed on the sale of alcohol at various bus stops or transport stations. Another way is for parents to teach children basic road crossing rules, and for drivers to be careful when school children attempt to cross the road. They should also respect speed limits.
Earlier this year, the NRSC developed and launched road safety text books to facilitate the teaching and learing of road safety at the basic school level throughout the country as one of the measures to curb the incidence.
Pedestrian safety is dependant mainly on people taking responsible decisions while crossing the road as well as the need for drivers to be careful and considerate while driving on the roads.
By: Akosua Asare, ETV Ghana.
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