Accra, June 15, GNA - Mr Noble John Appiah, Executive Director of National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), on Wednesday said road safety was a shared responsibility and urged all and sundry to come on board to demand high standards on the road.

He said it was time people were galvanised and stimulated to publicly demand for safety on the road. Mr Appiah was launching the second National Road Safety Awards in Accra.

The institutionally-based award was instituted in 2010 by the Ministry of Transport to raise the profile of transport organisations and unions to complement the broad framework of road safety management in Ghana.

A National Planning Committee to be formed would be guided by a set of criteria including the administration profile of transport unions and organisations; training and welfare programmes for their drivers, operational guidelines; hazard management profile and customer or passenger satisfaction of service delivery.

This year, there would be recognition for media reporting on road safety measures for both print and electronic media organisations to encourage knowledge transfer and higher sense of responsibility among road safety sub-sector agencies.

Some institutions sponsoring the awards presented packages during the launching.

They included African Development Bank (AfDB) that presented a cheque for 35,000 Ghana Cedis, Heidelbergy Cement Group (GHACEM) 25,000 Ghana Cedis and Freights Links Logistic Limited 5,000 Ghana Cedis.

The management of Guinness Ghana Limited also pledged quantities of their products to support the event.

Mr Appiah explained that the choice of institutions as opposed to individuals was informed by the thinking that, 93it takes strong institutions to put in place policies, processes and measures desirable for the public good."

"With strong institutions, there are standards as to quality of drivers, vehicles, proper maintenance regime for vehicles, training schedules for drivers informed by needs, data and best practices, institutional control on road user behaviours such as speeding, drink driving and driver fatigue among others," he said.

Mr Appiah said systems approach to road safety management, would be comfortable with the expectations of the awards, where transport organisations would be expected to put in place systems that would make crashes and their related injuries and deaths unlikely.

He expressed appreciation to managements of the three companies for their support and urged the public to continue to support their efforts to improve the general road safety situation in Ghana. Mr Morten Gade, Managing Director of GHACEM, stressed the need to ensure that high standards were observed on the roads to guarantee safety.

He called for intensified action about broken down and crash vehicles on the road to avert more road crashes and urged all road users to be committed towards achieving the national vision for road safety.