ONE DAY PARLIAMENTARIAN SEMINAR
ON ROAD WAY SAFETY
CENTRE FOR SOCIAL POLICY STUDIES (CSPS), UNIVERSITY OF GHANA IN COLLABORATION WITH ACTIONAID, GHANA
MIKLIN HOTEL, FEBRUARY 10, 2003
Of recent, Ghana has been experiencing an increasing spate
of road traffic accidents. These
accidents have claimed several lives, both children and adults, maimed numerous
victims and have severe effects on the welfare of families. It is against this background that the CSPS
decided to organize a workshop on road way safety in order to: bring together
all stakeholders in roadway safety; sensitise parliamentarians and policy
implementers in this sector on the magnitude of the problem, its impact on
society, and consequently chart the way forward.
In all, 76 participants comprising the following were in
attendance (attendance list is attached)
·
Parliamentarians representing
the select committees on, gender and children, roads and transport, employment,
social welfare and state enterprises and health.
·
clerks from the select
committees on, gender and children, roads and transport, employment, social
welfare and state enterprises and health.
·
Representatives from the various
branches of the Motor, monitoring and traffic unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police
Service
·
representatives from the press
·
representatives from the Ghana
Road Safety Commission
·
representatives from the
Ministry of Roads and Transport
·
representatives from Ghana
Highways authority
·
students from the university of
Ghana
·
staff from the Centre for Social
Policy Studies.
In her welcome address Prof. Apt
briefed participants on the role of the CSPS in influencing social policy
development, particularly those that impinge on family welfare and
well-being. Unfortunately however the
safety of members of the family, she mentioned, is being threatened by road
accidents, hence the need for this seminar.
She also mentioned that even though the Centre is situated at the
University of Ghana, it is mandated to and is its fervent desire to solicit the
participation of grassroot organizations, civil society organizations,
government departments, NGOs and planners to influence social policy
development for the betterment of society.
Mr. Kofi Nyantakyi remarked on the
timeliness of the seminar and regretted that one of the Parliamentarians had
lost his life through a fatal road accident the day before. He was however
hopeful that deliberations from this workshop would yield fruitful results and
chart the way forward. On his instance
a minute’s silence was observed in memory of the late Parliamentarian.
In his opening comments, Prof. K
Asenso-Okyere remarked that road traffic accidents are becoming very common and
are robbing the nation of its valuable human resource. He noted that the implications of these
accidents are many and mentioned some as: social trauma e.g. death, the
emergence of single-headed families, which consequently places a high burden of
responsibility on the surviving head. In the case where both parents are the victims
the onus lies on a family member of the children, economic trauma, decrease in
the labour force and consequently the GDP, increased expenditure on health
care, disruption in the demographic transition and the need for bye-elections
when a Parliamentarian dies.
Presentations
Copies of each presentation are
attached.
Supt. Victor Tandoh, Commanding Officer
MTTU, Ghana Police Service presented a paper entitled “ Regional trends and statistics of road
traffic accidents in Ghana”
Supt. Tandoh presented his paper along
the following sub headings:
·
Background of accident rates
·
Vehicular population versus risk of accidents
·
Causes of high rate of accidents in the Country
·
The vision and the role of MTTU
·
Constraints
According to Supt. Tandoh, from January
1, 1992, to December 31, 2001 (a period of ten years), a total of 104, 420
accident cases were recorded, giving an annual average of 10, 442 cases. About 145, 331 vehicles were involved in
these accidents, 10, 106 people lost their lives and 80,022 persons were
injured.
Ghana has the second fatality rate in
West Africa as far as road accidents are concerned and compared to Europe, the
first.
There are four main causes of road
accidents in this country namely:
·
Human i.e. the driver, passenger and pedestrian
·
Vehicle – its condition and maintenance
·
Environmental/weather
·
Road factors
He mentioned the role of the MTTU in
curbing road accidents as mainly education of drivers on defensive driving
skills and also the enforcement of road traffic regulations. To this end, the following teams have been
formed:
·
Education
·
Clamping and general patrol
·
Overspeeding and drunk driving
·
Red light
·
Towing
·
Night patrol
·
Traffic control and management
Richard L. Douglass (MPH, Ph.D ),
professor of Health Administration, Eastern Michigan University, USA. presented a
paper on Social and Economic
Implications of Roadway Casualties in Ghana: Perspectives of a Social
Epidemiologist.
In his presentation, Prof. Douglass
mentioned some of the impacts of road accidents as social and economic. Social in the sense that “when preventable
crashes become the most likely killers of men between 15 and 44, the loss is
extended to whose communities who loose many of their most promising sons,
future husbands ad future fathers.” The
economic impact is felt when “ the loss of future productivity and
contributions of highly talented and educated people whose talents and
education were provided by the State, and whose medical care subsequent to the
roadway crass was paid for by the extended family, represent tremendous losses
to the nation in economic terms.” In
addition, when a nation gains a reputation for dangerous or unpredictable
roadways, the other nations caution their visiting citizens, scholars and investors
against road way travel, which discourages important commerce and foreign
investment.
Dr. Lawrence Edusei, pathologist,
Department of Pathology, Korle-bu Teaching
Hospital, presented a paper on the “Investigating road accidents”.
Dr. Edusei said that road accidents are
a common place in this country to the extent that in 1995, Ghana ranked 2nd
to Mexico in terms of road fatalities.
In 1997, it ranked 2nd to Nigeria and has remained at this
position to date.
According to Dr. Edusei, most drivers
contain high percentages of blood alcohol
(ranging from 300-383/100ml) which is far above the accepted level of
2.43/100ml and is enough to kill anyone.
During the course of his work he has also noticed that blood alcohol
levels of pedestrians are not only dangerously high, but also enough to kill
them, without getting involved in an accident.
Those most affected by road accidents
in terms of injury and death according to Dr. Edusei are adults aged
31-50. Children aged 1-10 years are the
second largest group affected by road accidents.
Mr. Noble John Appiah, Acting Executive
Director, National Road Safety Commission
(NRSC) presented a paper on the “Overview of road safety and curbing the incidence of road accidents –
The role of the National Road Safety Commission.
Prior to his presentation, his unit
showed a documentary on some of the serious road accidents that have occurred
In this country, factors responsible for road accidents, what could be done to
decrease the incidence and the role of the NRSC. In his presentation, Mr. Appiah pointed out that in 1998, road
accidents ranked 9th among the list of 10 major causes of death,
however projections for the year 2020 indicate that road accidents would take
the 3rd place if nothing substantive is done about the current
situation.
He mentioned that the issue of road
accidents in this country is alarming and mentioned the basic statistics in
relation with accidents as follows:
·
Over 10,000 vehicles are involved in accidents
·
Over 10,000 people get injured through accidents.
·
At least 6 people are killed inroad accidents daily
·
25% are below 16 years and 25 % are aged 25-35
·
Speed is a contributory factor in 60 % of the cases
·
70% of the accidents occur on straight and flat roads
·
70% are males
·
18% of the accidents occur between 6 and 8 p.m.
·
Saturday is the most accident prone day
·
April is the most accident-prone month.
He mentioned that the role of the NRSC
in curbing the incidence of road accidents includes the following:
·
Education campaigns through TV documentaries in English and
5 local languages
·
Education campaign: driving under the influence of alcohol
·
Training of upper primary school teachers
·
Training of MTTU personnel
·
Acquisition of alcometers for the Central MTTU
·
Creation of national/regional accident data banks
·
Continued education programme for children
·
Continued training of MTTU staff.
·
Education of pedestrians to adopt the right road safety
attitudes.
Mr. Justice Amegashie, Ministry of Roads and Transport,
Accra, presented a paper on “Curbing the incidence of road traffic
accidents – What needs to be done?”
By
way of introduction, he mentioned that according to the World Disasters Report
1998, issued by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, road crashes will move up to third place in the world league table
for death and disability by the year 2020, just behind clinical depression and
heart disease but ahead of respiratory infections, tuberculosis and HIV.
Globally about
one million people die in road accidents each year and up to 50 million are
injured. Over 80 per cent of these are
in the developing emerging nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the
Middle East.
According to
him, available statistics reveal that between 1968 and 1990 road fatalities in
Africa increased by 350 percent
In Ghana,
existing accident data revealed that pedestrian fatality constitutes 45% of the
national fatality rate. Men constitute
67% of the national casualty rate while women constitute 23% per cent of the
national casualty. The continental
fatality rate is between 40-45%, which means that Ghana’s pedestrian fatality
is the same as that of the controversial average. Ghana experiences 72 deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles.
Some of the
socio-economic impacts include disability and therefore a high dependency
burden, and for some victims the gravity of their disability could render them
jobless. With men representing 67% of notional casualty it has serious
implications. The casualty is made up
of those killed and injured. The implications of this are increasing number of
widows and female headed households.
The implications for children are the inability to complete their
education or acquire skills for life making them school dropouts, social
destitute, social delinquents.
There are
other less tangible impacts as well such as the loss of man power making
society poorer by the loss.
Road accidents
affect the poor. The poor use the road
as pedestrians and cyclists and often ride in open pick-ups and trucks. Although it cannot be said that all poor
people are pedestrians and users of public transport, it is a fact that all
poor people will be pedestrians and users of public transport with little
access to private modes of motorized transport. Hence about 30-40 percent of
all road users killed in developing countries particularly in Africa.
In addition,
long periods of hospitalisation the plight of the poor. In situations where they are unable to pay
for bills they are detained, an experience which can affect them socially,
psychologically and mentally.
It is
determined that Road accident cost developing countries which includes Ghana
between 1-2% of the GDP. Current
estimates show that Ghana looses about US$300m every year through road
accidents. The cost does not include
pain, grief and suffering.
Costs for road
traffic accidents include direct costs, namely medical care, property damage
and insurance administration and indirect costs include property damage, delays
on the roadway, fuel consumption as a result of road accidents and resultant
traffic jam, loss of earnings, lost household productivity and environment
costs.
As many as 40%
of the adult surgical beds in some urban teaching hospitals in developing
countries are dented to the treatment of road accident victims. Medical facilities and resources that are to
be used for sick patients are diverted for accident victims.
What needs to
be done?
Political
priority and commitment
Mr. J.
Amegashie mentioned that owing to the socio-economic impacts that road traffic
accidents generate, it deserves to be given political priority and
commitment. Unfortunately in most
developing countries there is lack of political will to make interventions and
support road safety campaigns. He cited
examples from developed countries like the United States of America, Japan and
Finland, where the personal commitment and interest of their heads of state in
the maintenance of sanity on the roads has culminated in a drastic decrease in
road accidents and also the adherence to road regulations. He mentioned that in
Ghana, wearing of seat belts is yet to become mandatory, yet a lot more people
are dying through accidents when seat belts could have saved them.
Other
issues that need to be considered in order to curb road accidents are:
Sustained public awareness campaign, information dissemination and public
campaign, making road safety an integral component of the curriculum for basic
and second cycle schools. Reviewing and enforcing appropriate legislation as
regards road safety, training and retraining of drivers on the highway code and
defensive driving techniques, introduction of the safe community concept (a
concept which promotes injury prevention activities at the local level to solve
local highway and traffic safety and other injury problems. It uses a bottom up approach involving its
citizens in addressing key accident and injury problems), managing drivers
through collaboration, co-operation and commitment,
This forum was not only timely,
considering the fact that Ghana of recent had been wrecked by a spate of road
accidents and casualties but also was a success in terms of attendance and
participation. It brought together a
large number of stakeholders made up of policy makers, law enforcement agencies,
planners, academics, media, NGOs and members of the general public. The presentations were very insightful and
thought provoking and set the stage for interaction, questions and
brainstorming sessions.
APPENDIX A
The following are presentations from the group work.
·
The sale of alcohol should be
banned at all lorry parks.
·
Fines for drunk drivers should
be such that they would deter drivers from drinking. For example, drivers should be fined at least two million cedis
(¢2,000,000)
o
As an incentive to encourage
police to be vigilant on drivers, particularly drunk drivers, part of the fine
should be paid into the Ghana Police chest, to be used to top up salaries of
vigilant police.
o
Transport unions should pay
regular visits to hospitals to ascertain the damage caused by road accidents.
·
All those requiring drivers
license should be examined thoroughly by the DVLA to ensure that they are
conversant with road regulations before issuing licensees to them.
·
Periodic refresher courses
should be organized for all drivers.
·
A policy requiring that all
drivers, commercial and noncommercial alike should undergo periodic eye
screening tests should be passed.
o
These tests should be conducted
in recognized health institutions.
·
Tachographs should be installed
in all commercial vehicles to check over speeding
·
More staff should be recruited
for the MTTU of the Ghana Police Service in order to enforce road traffic
regulations and consequently arrest offending drivers.
WHAT
CAN BE DONE TO IMPROVE SAFETY ON THE ROADS?
WHAT
APPROPRIATE LEGISLATION IS NEEDED TO ENSURE SAFETY?
·
Creation of sidewalks so that
pedestrians are separated from the main vehicular traffic flow.
·
A consistent effort, through
education, to restrict pedestrians to walkways.
·
The enforcement of existing bye-laws.
·
Intensive education of the
public to abide by traffic regulations.
·
The introduction of curbs along
the walkways, in order to prevent and deter vehicles from using them.
·
Traffic offenders should be held
responsible for their actions and made to comply with the appropriate
sanctions.