Regional News of Saturday, 21 April 2007

Source: GNA

Wa town leads in road accidents in Upper West

WA, April 21, GNA - Numerous campaigns by the National Road Safety Committee and other agencies are failing to reduce the spate of road accidents in the country, as communities like the Wa Municipality continue to record high fatalities through motor accidents. Last year, Wa recorded 73 per cent of the 82 road accidents that occurred in the Upper West Region that led to a total of 79 deaths. Mr Ambrose Dery, the Regional Minster, said this in an address read on his behalf at the opening of a two-day educational campaign on road safety for parents, teachers and school children in the Wa Municipality at Wa on Thursday.

He said multi-sector, multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary dimension was needed to address the problem of accidents on the country's roads instead of relying solely on law enforcement agencies. Mr Dery said a series of training of trainers' workshops had been organized nation wide for over 5,000 teachers as one of the major strategies formulated to reduce accidents.

He appealed to parents, guardians and teachers to consider themselves as active partners in the crusade to enforce road traffic regulations.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Peter Ndekugri, who heads the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Police Service in the region, said 25 per cent of all pedestrian accidents involved people under 16 years of age.

He appealed to the general public to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies to make sanity prevail on the roads.