May Obiri Yeboah
MAY OBIRI Yeboah, Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission, has called on insurance companies to think safety by developing more packages that take care of vehicles that will not be involved in any crash.
“If insurance packages serve as a form of motivation to drivers of vehicles that do not involve themselves in crashes the whole year, this will motivate drivers to be more careful,” she noted.
At a day’s transport forum hosted by WAPIC Insurance themed, “Road Safety – A Shared Responsibility of Players in the Transport Industry,” Ms Obiri Yeboah said road traffic crashes cost Ghana about two per cent of her Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
From January to May this year, a total of 5,082 road traffic crashes were recorded, involving 8,293 vehicles which resulted in total casualties of 884 deaths and 5,095 injuries.
“Compared to the same period last year, 5,135 cases were reported which involved 7,863 vehicles leading to 888 deaths and 4,517 injuries. This shows a reduction of 1.03 percent reported cases and 0.5 percent persons killed. However, the number of vehicles involved in crashes and the injuries occurring have increased by 5.5 percent and 12.8 percent respectively.”
Adedayo Arowojolu, Managing Director, WAPIC Insurance Ghana, said most claim notifications from motor accidents indicated that 90 percent of the accidents were as a result of indiscipline on the roads.
He said the decision to hold the seminar was premised on their flagship MOOV Motor product, which exposed them daily to an “increasing rate of motor accidents and deaths on our roads.”
Mr Arowojolu therefore appealed for more stringent penalties to be imposed on drivers who flout traffic laws so as to discourage others “since the current penalty system is weak.”
Samuel Ayeh Payne, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Road and Transport, said 95 per cent of road accidents are preventable, citing human error – particularly over-speeding – as the most reported cause of motor accidents in the country.
Mabel Sagoe, Director of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA), said efforts were underway to get all activities of DVLA onto an automated platform, after which the police and other regulatory bodies would be integrated onto the platform to help forestall illegal driver licensing.
She cautioned against the public dealing with middlemen known as “goro-boys.”
A business desk report