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General News on Thursday, May 30, 2019
Source: Graphic.com.gh
2019-05-30
Pastor Paul Fynn, Ms. May Obiri-Yeboah, Dr. Dee Otibu-Asare at the Dialogue
By the end of June this year, Ghanaian police will begin to apply one-off fines to fight the indiscipline on the country's roads, the Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) said. May Obiri-Yeboah.
She said that seven years after the adoption of the traffic regulations, it was now time to make the payment system operational.
In the new system, under the direction of the police, drivers who violate the rules of the road repeatedly will also have their license revoked.
"We hope this intervention will help reduce the number of careless and unruly drivers on our roads," said Obiri-Yeboah.
She announced it during a national dialogue on the threat of road accidents organized by the West African Noble Forum (WANF) on the theme "The carnage on our roads: causes and solutions".
Participants discussed relevant road safety issues in Ghana, where accidents kill around 2,000 people and injure thousands more each year.
The infractions
The offenses likely to attract the fine include crossing the red light, driving without a seatbelt and without a driver's license and the use of a bad driver's license for vehicles.
Others go to speed, wearing a fire extinguisher, refusal to renew a driving certificate, the use of unspecified tinted windows, the conduct of driving. a vehicle without reflectors and the fact of not wearing motorcycle protective clothing.
Others drive on the side of the road, talk on the phone while driving, use a foreign driver's license, and interfere with intersections or crosswalks.
The system will be linked to the DVLA registry database to enable police forces in all parts of the country to easily access driver information.
The police, who must enforce the law, will not process the money of the offenders, but will issue tickets to the suspects to enable them to pay the fines provided in commercial banks and on other digital platforms.
The system was to be introduced in May 2013 but had to be suspended after the public outcry over the possibility that the police would abuse it.
Accidents
Obiri-Yeboah added that 90 percent of road accidents in the country were due to human error, vehicles in poor condition, poorly built roads, among others.
She noted, however, that "most Ghanaians believe that road accidents are inevitably caused by dark forces. Sorcerers, wizards, secret societies and demons are responsible for road accidents.
Prayers are therefore said at the beginning of the journeys to blind such perverse forces, "instead of taking precautionary measures, including vehicle inspection and preventing drunk drivers from driving. leave the truck stations.
"Road crashes have become a threat to public health and we need to manage them before we eliminate all of our productive young people," she added.
According to NRSC, nearly 58% of road accident victims in Ghana are between zero and 35 years old.
Obiri-Yeboah said the commission is currently participating in a national consultation on commercial motorcycles, known as Okada, to review the law on their activities.
advice
Pastor Paul Fynn, WANF president general, urged drivers to always keep their eyes on the road to avoid accidents.
He added that road accidents, the second leading cause of death after malaria in the country, must be fought.
The WANF Executive Secretary, Dr. Dee Otibu Asare, has appealed to the First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo, for her to add the construction of an orthopedic hospital to her projects in order to provide specialized treatment to victims of road accidents.
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