The Minister for Transport, Alhaji Collins Dauda, has said road traffic regulations would strictly be enforced in order to reduce carnage on our roads. Alhaji Collins Dauda attributed the many lives lost on our roads as a result of road crashes to laxity in enforcing road traffic regulations, adding “these lost ones are often bread winners in their family”. The Minister noted that when such lives are lost, their dependents are the most affected. He said this at the launch of heavy duty towing vehicles by the Road Safety Management Service in Accra on Wednesday. It is in collaboration with the National Road Safety Commission in partnership with Ministry of Transport, Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) and Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) This means heavy duty vehicles would no more be abandoned on the roads but would be towed by these heavy duty towing vehicles hours after they breakdown on the roads. Drivers in the urban centers will have one hour to tow their broken down vehicles to an appropriate place while drivers in the rural areas have two hours to tow their vehicles. Failure to do so will attract a penalty of three thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC 3,000) or eight months imprisonment. Statistics available to the NRSC indicates that 2,330 people died from road crashes last year with majority of them being the working class. Alhaji Collins Dauda therefore tasked vehicle owners to pay for services when their broken down vehicles are towed to safety. He warned of stiff punishment for offenders of this initiative. He urged politicians to ensure strict adherence to this traffic law adding, “politicians should not intercede for offenders of this traffic regulations”. The Commander of MTTU, ASP Anwugutoge Awuni appealed to the judiciary to give stiffer punishment to road traffic offenders, to serve as a deterrent to others. He lamented over how the courts tend to give lesser punishment to road offenders after the police had put in so much to bring them to the court. This, he noted, sometimes demoralizes personnel of the Police Service.