A Senior Researcher of Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), Dr William Ackah says the responsibility to make the country’s roads safe depends on all and sundry.

Contributing to the topic, “Bloody Roads: 1,706 crushed between January and July 2021” on JoyNews’ The Probe Sunday, Dr Ackah stated that road accidents are an issue that needs to be tackled consciously.

In his view, the country’s roads will remain unsafe if strategic reforms are not implemented to address road traffic crashes.

“Looking at the trend not only in 2020 but from 2000, road traffic accidents seem to be on the rise. We tend to have a lot of travel, more vehicles are being imported into the country but the roads remain the same. The conditions of the vehicle haven’t improved much and road users’ behaviour is not the best.

“And so we will continue to see the increase in road traffic crashes. Unless we put in the necessary interventions, road accidents will continue to rise because safety will not just happen. We need to put in conscious efforts to make sure that road traffic crashes will reduce,” he told Emefa Apawu.

On his part, the Head of Regulation, Inspection and Compliance of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) highlighted the number of road accidents that have been recorded in the past 48 hours.

Kwame Koduah Atuahene attributed some crashes to wrongful overtaking, noting that, such incidents could have been prevented if motorists abided by road regulations.

 “If you look at the data from January to July you will notice that about 67% of the deaths are coming out of four out of the 16 regions; Greater Accra, Ashanti, Eastern and Central Regions.

“Wrongful overtaking has been high on the agenda. In as much as motorists are aware of the risky nature of the choices they make, for one reason or the other they appear unperturbed to create problems for other road users,” he said.

Over 1,706 Ghanaians, according to statistics from the Ghana Police Service, have lost their lives to road accidents from January to July 2021.

The deaths recorded on Ghana’s roads are said to exceed lives lost to the deadly Covid-19 pandemic that stands at 922 as of August 11, 2021.

Meanwhile, JoyNews’ hotline documentary “Crushed Young” by Seth Kwame Boateng is set to premiere on Monday.

It reveals how the menace has destroyed many young lives leaving persons amputated and paralysed.