Some participants in a group picture
The Ashanti Regional Director of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), Simbiat Wiredu, has stated that about 918 reported road crashes involving 1,545 vehicles were recorded during the first quarter of 2022.
She attributed these crashes and their related fatalities to speeding, wrongful overtaking, drink driving, jumping red lights, among others.
According to her, the crashes resulted in 138 pedestrian knockdowns, 137 deaths and 1,048 severe to minor injuries on roads in the region.
She also added that inadequate road furniture, inadequate pedestrian crossings, poor nature of roads, importation of sub-standard vehicles and broken down vehicles contributed immensely to road crashes plaguing the Ashanti region.
She was speaking at a one-day strategic planning meeting organized by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), in collaboration with the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) and the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA).
The meeting was aimed at creating a platform for key stakeholders to meet and dialogue on the major risk factors for fatal road crashes and serious injuries in the city of Kumasi based on available data. It was part of efforts towards the effective planning and implementation of a national mass media campaign spearheaded by the NRSA.
Other findings
The Regional Technical Advisor for Africa on Road Injury Surveillance, Dr. Raphael Awuah, said findings from the road injury risk factor observational studies on selected corridors in Kumasi established the verity that the prevalence of speed stood at 29%.
He therefore called on stakeholder organisations in Kumasi to undertake speed focused interventions in the city to reduce speed on roads. He also pointed out that the non-wearing of seatbelts among drivers within the city was high, with 75% of drivers driving not wearing their seatbelts.
Mavis Obeng-Mensah, the Communications Coordinator for BIGRS Ghana, explained that there was the need to undertake speeding interventions to remedy the speeding situation in Kumasi.
Making reference to the World Health Organization (WHO), she stressed that increase in average speed is directly related both to the likelihood of a crash occurring and the severity of the consequences of the crash.
“It is estimated that every 1% increase in mean speed produces a 4% increase in the risk of fatal crashes and a 3% increase in the risk of serious injury crashes. BIGRS is using this occasion to call on all road safety stakeholder organizations to harmonize efforts in support of the upcoming speeding mass media campaign,” she urged.
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