The Motto Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service has blamed the alarming rate of road crashes in the country on indiscipline and disregard for road traffic regulation by commercial drivers.
In an interview on The Pulse on Monday, Director of the MTTD revealed that they will digitise their operations as a measure to instill discipline and reduce the carnage on roads.
“We are going to digitise our operations so that enforcement will be very easy for us. It’s about combining education and enforcement to make sure that at the end of the day, we’d be able to downside the road traffic problem.”
Dr Samuel Sasu Mensah cautioned of a rigorous enforcement drive across the country to ensure that drivers strictly obey the road traffic rules and regulations.
“The craft of the issue has to do with the fact that most of the drivers are not respecting traffic rules and regulations. They are breaching traffic rules and traffic regulations with impunity. The Police, as a matter of fact, we are continuing with enforcing the rules and regulations.”
“We have gone on several operations but what we ought to do now is to increase the pace and to make sure that we educate, inform and enforce at the same time. So we are going to strictly combine education with strict and rigorous enforcement of the road traffic rules and regulations,” he said.
Road crashes remain an issue of concern as many lives are lost yearly to the menace.
Fresh data compiled by the MTTD indicate that 28 persons died through road accidents during the Christmas activities.
Some 148 individuals also suffered various injuries as 133 accidents occurred between 24th and 26th December 2021.
For the period 19th December to 25th December (seven days), 81 lives were lost. In addition, some 378 persons were injured from 373 accidents.
Accra was the worst hit with 156 reported accident cases, followed closely by the Ashanti region with 90 reported cases.
The Savanna Region is the only region without a reported accident case. On the other hand, the North East region reported one case.
Accra was the worst hit with 44 reported accident cases, followed closely by the Ashanti region with 22 reported cases.