The National Road Safety Authority has called on the government to prioritize the dualisation of major roads in the country to prevent rampant road crashes and head-on collisions.
Director of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation of NRSA, Martin Owusu Afram stressed the need to take measures including tackling human behaviour to reduce the number of road crashes across the country.
“When we looked at research on road crashes, we can conclude that over 90 percent of road traffic crashes are due to human behaviour. It is interesting because people think it is the road, but the road contributes a minimal percentage and the condition of the vehicle also contributes a minimal percentage. This is because, if your vehicle is not very strong or has a defect and you the human being behind the wheel is able to adjust accordingly, you will be able to save some lives.”
Martin Owusu Afram further enumerated a number of factors that are responsible for the substantial crashes on our roads.
“We have destructive driving, drunk driving, and wrongful overtaking being key contributory factors to road crashes in the country. One other thing I want to add is that the Road Safety Authority has been advocating that our roads should be dualised.”
According to the Authority, its data shows that dualisation of the Nsawam section of the Kumasi-Accra Highway has massively brought the road crash figures on that stretch down, and wants similar ones to be done on various highways.
“We did a preliminary study with regard to dualisation of our roads, and we found that by dualising Nsawam to Apedwa Junction in the Eastern Region, it has considerably reduced road traffic crashes, injuries, and deaths on that corridor.”
“If we are able to dualise Accra to Kumasi road, the number of crashes and deaths we are going to get will be minimized,” Mr. Afram added.
