The Upper East Regional Manager of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Mutawakil Abdulai, has said there is no magic on the road to save human lives; advising the general public to be vigilant and take responsibility for their own safety when travelling by road.
Mr. Abdulai made this comment on A1 Radio in reaction to a gory accident that occurred Wednesday, on the Buipe-Tamale highway where about 20 persons perished while traveling from Kumasi to Garu and from Zebila to Kumasi repectively.
He said “The general public should be very cautious about the kind of buses they take. When you sit in a bus from Kumasi and the driver moves for more than 4 hours, you must tell the driver to stop and take a rest for at least 20 to 30 minutes.”
Despite admitting road safety is a shared and collective responsibility, he motioned that major causes of road accidents could be attributed to transport operators especially drivers not adhering to traffic rules and regulations.
Mr. Abdulai further blamed state authorities for not putting in place proactive measures to curb the carnage on the roads.
He believes the state over the years has invested very little to empower drivers as well as road safety regulatory bodies in the country.
According to him, “It looks as if the state is not interested in the death of innocent lives. If you ask they’ll tell you the state has invested powers of stopping these accidents into DVLA and the Ghana Road Safety Authority. But unfortunately, these institutions are all toothless bulldogs.”
Mr. Abdulai therefore advised members of the general public to hold the state accountable for the carnage on the roads just as they do to bodies like the DVLA, NRSA and the Motor Transport and traffic Directorate (MTTD).
Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Ghana
