Mr. David Adonteng, Director-General, National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), says the road safety effort in
Ghana hinges on the advocacy effort and support from the media.
He said media could promote road safety by providing platforms for road safety awareness and intervention
programmes.
The Director-General was speaking at a capacity-building workshop on road safety reporting organized by the
NRSA with support from CUTS International and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The workshop was attended by journalists and editors, as they had the opportunity to be educated on topics,
including the road safety situation in election years, the role of media in reducing crashes, and interpreting road
safety statistics in election years.
Mr Adonteng said for the year 2023, road traffic accidents had reduced as compared to the previous year.
However, he said political cycles influenced the frequency and severity of road traffic accidents and injury rates in
the country.
He said the media could play a major role in creating awareness of road safety during election periods, emphasizing
that they could educate the public on the contributing factors of road traffic accidents during elections.
“Now we are also particularly interested this year because in every election year, we have a history; our statistics
point to the fact that when elections are coming and politicians organized their rallies and campaigns to solicit for
votes, their activities impact negatively on our road traffic accident figures," he said.
He said in the past years that elections were held, "we have monitored this seriously and closely and found out that
this running round to the various locations across the country populates our streets and our roads with people with
vehicles and with all kinds of characters that are contrary to the requirements of our law."
Mr Adonteng said the media must demand traffic and road safety responsibility from political actors and amplify
public sentiments on road safety concerns.
The Daily Searchlight agrees wholly with Mr. Adonteng. We believe, however, that in addition to the above, the
effort to create safe roads should also run parallel with driver education and enforcement of the law.
In Ghana, drivers seem to operate on the principle of ‘first past the mark’. Every driver seems to be responding to an
emergency, not just travelling from place to place. This has created a culture where nobody seems to be safe on the
road.
There is therefore the need to educate drivers on the need for courtesy towards each other and pedestrians, the
observation of traffic rules and regulations, and respect for law.
This would make the roads safer than they are now.
(Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of 20 th September, 2024).
