Transport consultant Cecil Garbrah has reiterated the need for commercial drivers to get tested by the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).

His comments come as some commercial drivers explained why they do not take their vehicles for the compulsory roadworthy test that the DVLA offers to ensure safety on the roads.

He explained that it is important for all road users to just abide by the Road Traffic Regulations which requires every vehicle to go for testing.

Commercial vehicles are to go for testing every six months while private vehicles are supposed to go once a year.

“All the vehicles need to be safe because just imagine you have a ball joint issue where your tyre is not aligned properly and your tyres get off. Definitely that tyre when it removes is going to hit somebody who is walking elsewhere,” he told Daniel Dadzie on the Super Morning Show, Wednesday.

Since the beginning of the new year, over 100 people have either been killed or suffered various degrees of injuries nationwide through road accidents. 

Joy News in a bid to curb the accidents has started the #ArriveAlive campaign to sensitise the public on road safety measures. 

Contributing to the discussion on how to prevent road accidents, Mr Garbrah advised drivers especially commercial drivers to be careful about the tyres under their cars. 

He said commercial vehicle [drivers] who do not take time to know the duration of their tyres and changing it on time are likely to kill a lot of passengers when there’s a tyre burst. 

The transport consultant explained that the tread depth limit of a tyre determines how strong the grip of the tyre is on the ground surface.

“If a car doesn’t handle or grip the road as well as usual in wet weather or it takes longer to stop when you apply the brakes, by law the tyres should be checked and changed.

“Tyres do expire, every tyre that you see has a period of six years that you must use the tyre for, tread limits must be 1.6mm,” he elaborated.

The former Chief Executive of the DVLA suggested that the reason why commercial drivers do not obey the law to test their vehicles for roadworthiness is due to enforcement issues. 

“It’s an enforcement issue. So now that we have a national road safety authority going to look over DVLA and its activities including enforcement - I believe every commercial vehicle, should be tested at the testing companies we have at Weija and Dome and so on. 

By law DVLA is not allowed to give certificates until vehicles have been approved and have been tested by the companies so that for safety reasons, road crashes will be reduced,” he said.

He also lamented that the police do not have the essential inspection kits to check for fake roadworthy certificates which are not issued by DVLA.

“There are a lot of fake stickers in the system and it also goes down to the issue of if the police have got the right test kit to determine the certificate,” he said.