The Director of Planning and Programmes at the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Mrs. May Obiri Yeboah has urged all Ghanaians to be responsible for ensuring that the country’s roads are safe from accidents.
Speaking in an interview with Radio Gold, Mrs. Obiri Yeboah warned road users in the country to refrain from bad practices that threaten lives on the roads.
She was particularly worried about the spate of accidents that occur on the George Walker Bush Highway (N1 Highway) and therefore admonished commuters as well as drivers who ply the highway not to be reckless.
She advised pedestrians to use the footbridges constructed on the highway in order to avoid the numerous accidents that have become the bane of the locality.
She also blamed the contractors of the highway, for failing to construct all the footbridges supposed to be put up on the highway and revealed that the NRSC has therefore held meetings with them to ensure that the footbridges on the highway are completed to ease the pressures on the road, which result in several road crashes.
Mrs. Obiri Yeaboah also attibuted the collisions to the poor nature of the nation’s roads and so, found it unfortunate that “a lot of our roads are bad and we know that bad roads with potholes, and gullies etc, people would want to prevent going into them. And then normally, when they leave their lanes and get into other lanes, that’s when they meet other people and then, there are head-on collision etc. Some even in single crashes, they just bump into a pothole and then they go out of the road and then, they are involved in a crash.”
According to her, “we are all to that, every one of us, we are all guilty and therefore, we have to correct some of these things that are happening on the N1. If you look at the hawkers also, they’re also selling on the walkway where people will have to walk and therefore, they need to leave the walkway free for the pedestrian also to use. So, there is a multiplicity of problem on the N1.”
“I think that now, everybody knows their responsibility and we expect that everybody will do it. And then we need cooperation also from the general public.” she concluded.