Road accidents killed 39 in Tema between January

MTTD agents educate road users

Thirty-nine people in the Tema police enclave died from road accidents between January and March this year, according to Sergeant Richard Timinka of the Transportation and Automobile Traffic Directorate (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service.

Explain accident data in terms of gender; Sgt. Timinka said of the 39 registered deaths; four were men under the age of 18; and 25 were 18 and over. Two women under 18; and 18 other people aged 18 and over have also died.

He noted that the deaths were due to 344 accidents involving 194 utility vehicles and 248 passenger cars as well as 99 motorcycles, tricycles and bicycles.

Sergeant Timinka, told the Ghana News Agency’s Tema office and road safety campaign platform MTTD on Friday, July 9.

The GNA-Tema and MTTD road safety project seeks to actively create a coherent and systematic weekly awareness campaign on the need to be careful on the road as a user, to educate all road users on their responsibilities. and to make drivers aware of the principles of the road in particular. safety regulations, rules and laws.

Provide data to support the accident rate in the region, Sgt. Timinka said commercial vehicles killed 18 people, private cars 13 and motorcycles / tricycles eight.

Breaking the Statistics Further Sgt. Timinka said 34 fatal, 154 serious and 156 minor accident cases were recorded in the first quarter of this year.

He explained that “fatal accidents are those where death has occurred; the most serious were those in which the victims were hospitalized for more than 24 hours; while minors are those whose victims spent less than 24 hours in hospital.

The region of Tema which stretches from the Slaughterhouse to Ada, Ashaiman, Dodowa and the Shai Hills also recorded 384 injuries due to road accidents.

Referring to some of the causes of crashes, especially those of passenger cars, he revealed that most drivers of such vehicles use communication devices while driving, to the point that some have even engaged in telephone conversations on the roads.

Sgt Timinka added that private drivers after licensing are not given any refresher courses that could lead to complacency, noting that other factors are included; non-maintenance of their vehicles, driver fatigue, bad nature of the roads, lack of markup among others.

He observed that there was a high probability that people would be injured in crashes involving motorcycles and tricycles, as statistics from Tema showed that 91 people were injured in the first quarter of 2021 and 13 died from the 99 accidents that involved them.

He said another worrying trend was the killing of pedestrians, as he said nine of them were killed between January and March 2021 out of the 23 hit by vehicles.

He urged drivers to be responsible on the road and protect pedestrians by stopping to cross while warning pedestrians to only cross roads at designated and safe places to avoid endangering themselves as well as other road users.

Mr. Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Director of the Ghana News Agency, called on the media to step up public education on road safety, stressing that “road safety is a shared responsibility, we must not leave anyone behind. next to “.

He commended MTTD Tema Command for the effort to team up with the Tema office of the Ghana News Agency to embark on the weekly public education campaign to make roads safe for all.