70% of vehicles lacks roadworthiness on Ghana's roads, What accounts for that?





Poor road conditions, human error, vehicle breakdowns coupled with environmental factors like poor weather and non-road worthy vehicles have been cited as major causes of road accidents in Ghana as a result many people lost their lives everyday. 

Statistics according to media report revealed that four people die daily on Ghana's roads due to road accident. Upon estimation Ghana loses over 230 million dollars yearly due to road accidents with more than 1600 deaths. 

Research by the National Road Safety Commission revealed that in 2010 that there were 19 fatalities per 10,000 vehicles in Ghana. Statistics again showed that 43% of the fatalities involved pedestrians and 53% involved occupants of vehicles  whiles 23% of all pedestrians’ fatalities involved children below the age of 16 years.

What really accounts for that? Well guess what?  A lot of factors counts but let’s find out about that of non-roadworthy vehicles that ply on the  roads everyday.

About 70% of vehicles on Ghana's road don't meet safe standards, according to Mr Samuel Oppong, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Vehicle Inspection and Technical Organisation (VITO), a private entity licensed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) to check roadworthiness of vehicles.

Mr. Oppong says this has led to many road crashes recorded across the country.

Head of Public relations of the Driver Vehicle and licensing Authority,Mr Kwaku Aferi  maintains carelessness on the part of drivers as well as activities of miscreants known in our local parlance “Goro boys” accounts for the cause of non-roadworthy vehicles plying  roads in Ghana.
The question often  posed is what is the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority as a body mandated by the Ghana’s parliament Act 569 in the year 1999 to ensure safety on our roads doing about it.?


Mr. Aferi explain that the Driver and Vehicle  licensing Authority (DVLA )is in the process of installing very good equipment in their office to ensure that vehicles are well tested before they are granted roadworthy certificates in addition, DVLA has also computerized the driver licensing regime to ensure that only very good drivers are seen driving on the roads.

He lamented the activities of miscreants who often issue fake licenses and roadworthy certificates to some drivers, adding DVLA is equally in the process of automating their services to cut out their actions.

He cautioned drivers to keep to the road regulations, maintain their vehicles regularly and to refrain from drink driving.

Safety experts fear that the roads will not be rid of carnages in years to come if nothing is done to check up on roadworthiness of vehicles.




Comments

  1. Jack Gibson6 April 2016 at 05:02

    Very informative post. thanks for sharing with us. You may also like to know about trucking services in Ghana

    ReplyDelete

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