Mr. David Adonteng, Director-General, National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), says the road safety effort in Ghana hinges on the advocacy effort and support from the media.
He said media could promote road safety by providing platforms for road safety awareness and intervention programmes.
The Director-General was speaking at a capacity-building workshop on road safety reporting organised by the NRSA with support from CUTS International and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The workshop was attended by journalists and editors, as they had the opportunity to be educated on topics, including the road safety situation in election years, the role of media in reducing crashes, and interpreting road safety statistics in election years.
Mr Adonteng said for the year 2023, road traffic accidents had reduced as compared to the previous year.
However, he said political cycles influenced the frequency and severity of road traffic accidents and injury rates in the country.
He said the nedia could play a major role in creating awareness of road safety during election periods, emphasising that they could educate the public on the contributing factors of road traffic accidents during elections.
“Now we are also particularly interested this year because in every election year, we have a history; our statistics point to the fact that when elections are coming and politicians organisd their rallies and campaigns to solicit for votes, their activities impact negatively on our road traffic accident figures,” he said.
He said in the past years that elections were held, “we have monitored this seriously and closely and found out that this running round to the various locations across the country populates our streets and our roads with people with vehicles and with all kinds of characters that are contrary to the requirements of our law,.”
Mr Adonteng said the media must demand traffic and road safety responsibility from political actors and amplify public sentiments on road safety concerns.
He said the media must identify and highlight legislative enforcement gaps and draw the attention of the political parties to them.
Mr. Martin Afram, Director Planning and Programme, NRSA, said the media played a major role in reducing road traffic accidents during elections, stressing that the media could collaborate with his outfit and other agencies to promote road safety.
