With barely a month to this year’s Christmas holidays, the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service has indicated that the police are working on various plans towards maintaining discipline on roads in the country before, during and after the yuletide.
It said the intensified activities would check dangerous behaviours such as drink-driving and speeding.
The Director General of Police MTTD, DCOP Francis Boakye Nyarko made this known at a workshop by the National Insurance Commission (NIC) to train National Service Personnel posted to the directorate.
“[We’re checking] Certain risky behaviours such as drink-driving, over speeding and also activating our accident preventive squad to support in this regard. We are also intensifying road traffic education, information and publicly throughout the country,” he said.
The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has consistently cautioned drivers and other road users to strictly adhere to road traffic regulations to prevent the crashes that are associated with the festive season.
Available data shows that yuletide portends a higher risk of road crashes.
Road crashes data for the year 2021 doesn’t look pretty.
Provisional data compiled by the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service has revealed that the number of commuters killed in road traffic crashes, from January to September 2021, rose by 16.37 percent, compared to the same period last year.
It increased from 1,827 between January and September 2020 to 2,126 in the first nine months of this year.