Two roads crashes involving three cars occur in Ghana approximately every hour (pg 20)
She left home excited… After three years, she was going to meet her
parents. Tamale has been kind to her. Right after national service, she
had a job with one of the big non-governmental organisations in the
northern regional capital. The pecks were good and to ice the cake,
marriage was not far away.
With an earphone in her ears and a book in hand, she sat right behind the driver. Her attention buried in the book. Then it happened. Within a split second, she heard an explosion. Wails of Jesus! Jesus! Kai! Woyoooo! drowned as the vehicle somersaulted. She lost consciousness….
When Ama, clothed in blood, regained consciousness on the isolated highway, she limped out of the mangled vehicle with a head splitting pain.
One hour came, then two… then three before the ambulance arrived… With the speed of a cat, the paramedics put her on the stretcher and lifted her into the ambulance.
But she couldn’t make it… She died.
It is this long emergency response hours that the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) wants to reduce.
The roads
The NRSC is to build eight first aid clinics near identified accident-prone spots to improve emergency response to victims of road accidents.
While Accra-Kumasi will have three clinics, Accra-Aflao and Accra-Takoradi will have three and two respectively.
The project, which is expected to start the first quarter of next year, is expected to reduce drastically, the current three hours within which victims of road accidents receive medical attention.
Speaking at the national road safety action plan review programme in Accra last week, Mr Samuel Obeng, a Senior Planning Officer of the NRSC, said such clinics had become necessary because of the lengthy distance from major hospitals and crash points.
The review is to look at Ghana’s performance over the past three years with respect to national road safety action Plan, which spans between 2011 and 2020.
The process gives stakeholders in the sector to critically assess them and make an objective into the next Action Plan after an independent evaluation has been done.
United Nation’s, Decade of Action
The country’s plan falls in line with UN’s Decade of Action on Road Safety which seeks to save millions of lives through the reduction in road accidents on the world’s roads.
Ghana’s quest to reduce road accidents has been inspired by three plans, one from 2000 to 2005, and another from 2006 to 2010 before the current one.
The global plan is built on five pillars—road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users and post-crash response.
But the Executive Director of the NRSC, Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, said, “Ghana added a sixth pillar—enforcement— to address her local concern. This pillar is to ensure the enactment and enforcement of laws and regulations to enhance road safety while improving the existing human and financial capacities of the law enforcement agencies”.
With close to 2000 lives perishing annually on the country’s roads, Mr Obeng listed a litany of efforts by the commission to curb the menace.
These include the development of user guidelines to help the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in their programme of activities to reduce road accidents; the revision of the Ghana Road code, removal of disabled vehicles on the roads; road inspections and donation of speed guns to the police.
The statistics
Between January and September this year, 1,539 lives were lost and 9,741 injured through 10,018 road crashes involving 16,242 vehicles.
The figures means an average of 171 people died, 1082 injured in 1113 crashes involving 1084 vehicles monthly in the last nine months.
Forty two deaths, 271 injuries, 278 crashes involving 271 vehicles happen on the country’s roads weekly.
This also means that for every day within the last nine months, there were an average of 40 road crashes, involving 64 vehicles, with six people losing their lives while 38 others sustained injuries.
That is not all. For every hour in Ghana, approximately two road crashes involving approximately three vehicles and the injury of approximately two people occur.
At the global level, nearly 1.3 million worldwide die as a result of road traffic crashes every year.
With an earphone in her ears and a book in hand, she sat right behind the driver. Her attention buried in the book. Then it happened. Within a split second, she heard an explosion. Wails of Jesus! Jesus! Kai! Woyoooo! drowned as the vehicle somersaulted. She lost consciousness….
When Ama, clothed in blood, regained consciousness on the isolated highway, she limped out of the mangled vehicle with a head splitting pain.
One hour came, then two… then three before the ambulance arrived… With the speed of a cat, the paramedics put her on the stretcher and lifted her into the ambulance.
But she couldn’t make it… She died.
It is this long emergency response hours that the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) wants to reduce.
The roads
The NRSC is to build eight first aid clinics near identified accident-prone spots to improve emergency response to victims of road accidents.
While Accra-Kumasi will have three clinics, Accra-Aflao and Accra-Takoradi will have three and two respectively.
The project, which is expected to start the first quarter of next year, is expected to reduce drastically, the current three hours within which victims of road accidents receive medical attention.
Speaking at the national road safety action plan review programme in Accra last week, Mr Samuel Obeng, a Senior Planning Officer of the NRSC, said such clinics had become necessary because of the lengthy distance from major hospitals and crash points.
The review is to look at Ghana’s performance over the past three years with respect to national road safety action Plan, which spans between 2011 and 2020.
The process gives stakeholders in the sector to critically assess them and make an objective into the next Action Plan after an independent evaluation has been done.
United Nation’s, Decade of Action
The country’s plan falls in line with UN’s Decade of Action on Road Safety which seeks to save millions of lives through the reduction in road accidents on the world’s roads.
Ghana’s quest to reduce road accidents has been inspired by three plans, one from 2000 to 2005, and another from 2006 to 2010 before the current one.
The global plan is built on five pillars—road safety management, safer roads and mobility, safer vehicles, safer road users and post-crash response.
But the Executive Director of the NRSC, Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, said, “Ghana added a sixth pillar—enforcement— to address her local concern. This pillar is to ensure the enactment and enforcement of laws and regulations to enhance road safety while improving the existing human and financial capacities of the law enforcement agencies”.
With close to 2000 lives perishing annually on the country’s roads, Mr Obeng listed a litany of efforts by the commission to curb the menace.
These include the development of user guidelines to help the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in their programme of activities to reduce road accidents; the revision of the Ghana Road code, removal of disabled vehicles on the roads; road inspections and donation of speed guns to the police.
The statistics
Between January and September this year, 1,539 lives were lost and 9,741 injured through 10,018 road crashes involving 16,242 vehicles.
The figures means an average of 171 people died, 1082 injured in 1113 crashes involving 1084 vehicles monthly in the last nine months.
Forty two deaths, 271 injuries, 278 crashes involving 271 vehicles happen on the country’s roads weekly.
This also means that for every day within the last nine months, there were an average of 40 road crashes, involving 64 vehicles, with six people losing their lives while 38 others sustained injuries.
That is not all. For every hour in Ghana, approximately two road crashes involving approximately three vehicles and the injury of approximately two people occur.
At the global level, nearly 1.3 million worldwide die as a result of road traffic crashes every year.
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