The Motor, Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service would in coming week be operating with a newly acquired speed detection device, Laser Cam 4.

The device is a speed detection gun that can capture at once multiple motorists that violate the speed limit compared to the previous police speed gun which could only claim one offender at a time.

Personnel of the MTTD taken through a field training session on how to operate the Laser Cam 4 on the Kawukudi-37 link in Accra on Friday, November 1.

The devices donated by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Bloomberg Philanthropies for Global Road Safety (AMA - BIGRS), during the training, helped see to the arrest of 13 motorists driving above the 50km/h speed limit.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, who was present at the session, cautioned motorists to comply with the 50km/h and 30km/h speed limits in urban and school areas respectively as stipulated in Ghana Road Traffic Regulations (L.I.2180) when plying the city's roads.

“We have a major challenge with speeding in Accra, this year over 1,500 people have died from road crashes. 95% of all vehicles on the Kawukudi-37 link were speeding above the speed limit and this is unacceptable. Once the police capture the evidence of your speeding and present it to the court, your guess is as good as mine,“ he said.

According to him, checking the speed of cars on the roads would go a long way to help reduce the high rate of road crash fatalities and injuries recorded in the city.

He revealed that data from the MTTD indicates that 70 per cent of road crash victims were pedestrians.

“A life lost means a lot to us, everybody matters. Today we are cautioning all of you to be responsible and obey the rules and be ambassadors for road safety,“ he added. 

The Business Development Engineer for the ROBTECH, suppliers of the new speed guns said, the device could read speed of  52 cars in 30 seconds and could capture the number plates of these vehicles.

He described the new speed detection device as a fourth-generation video device with patent features such as auto-track, adding that the device also zooms continually with target tracking, optimisation of target-specific measurements and simplification of the user experience which he believes would help immeasurably in reducing speeding in the city.

A staff officer of the Central MTTD, ASP Richard Nyarko, expressed gratitude to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Bloomberg Philanthropies for Global Road Safety (AMA - BIGRS) for equipping the police to enforce traffic regulations in the city adding that, the device would go a long way to aid in prosecuting offenders who speed on the roads.

Mohammed Adjei Sowah

"We don't have such device to provide real-time evidence of speeding when drivers are caught but with these new devices we are assured of concrete evidence to prosecute offenders," he said.

ASP Nyarko cautioned the drivers to obey the speed limits to avoid prosecution.

The Coordinator for Bloomberg Philanthropist for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), Osei Kufour, during the opening of the training, said the training was also to unveil the new devices to assist the police do their work more effectively.

"Previously, the police were using a speed gun which could capture only one vehicle at a time and lots of people escaped because there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute them,” he said.

Mr Osei Kufour emphasised that the training forms part of activities to equip the police ahead of the road safety mass media campaign in the metropolis.