Long-distance vehicles to have 2 drivers – MTTD
Long-distance journeys will soon require the use of two drivers as revealed by the Motor Transport and Traffic Department of the Ghana Police Service.
The department is confident that this directive will in a way decrease the surging numbers of accidents on the country’s highways.
This comes in the wake of several road crashes involving long-distance travellers and that includes one last week which accounted for about 20 lives on the Offinso-Abofuor road.
Reckless and fatigued driving has been noted as the number one cause of such incidents by the National Road Safety Authority.
Director–General of the MTTD DCOP Francis Aboagye Nyarko reiterated the fact that operators of such buses must ensure they deploy two drivers on a bus.
“Those going on long journeys have about two drivers so that when one is tired, the other takes over. Those who don’t comply, are the recalcitrant ones. They should be able to comply with the laid down rules so that we will be able at least salvage these situations. Valuable lives being lost is worrying. So we will revisit our advocacy program, and we will make sure we address this issue to reduce the carnage on our roads. We will make sure that we enforce that the two drivers regime is sustained so that at the end of the day, we sanitize our roads.”
Sadly in the year, 2021 accidents have claimed the lives of over 2,000 persons.
Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) research, unravelled that the number of commuters killed in road traffic crashes for the first nine months of the year 2021 rose by 16.37% compared to the same period last year.
The numbers surged from 1,827 between January and September 2020, to 2,126 in the first nine months of this year.
According to the data, out of the 1,751 males, 193 were below the age of 18 and 1,558 who are 18 years and above were killed.
Similarly, 375 females comprising 100 who are 18 years and below as well as 275 aged 18 years and above also died from crashes.
By: Stella Annan | myactiveonline.com Twitter @activetvgh
