The Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, says the use of two drivers for long-distance buses will be enforced.
According to the department, the move will aid in reducing the increasing number of road crashes on the country’s highways.
This comes on the back of a road crash that occurred on the Offinso-Abofour road in the Ashanti Region on November 1 which claimed 20 lives.
The National Road Safety Authority has blamed most of these crashes on reckless and fatigue driving.
In a media interview, Director-General of the MTTD, DCOP Francis Aboagye Nyarko said operators of long-distance buses must deploy two drivers on a bus.
“Those going on long journeys have about two drivers so that when one is tired, the other takes over. Those who don’t comply, are the recalcitrant ones. They should be able to comply with the laid down rules so that we will be able at least salvage these situations. Valuable lives being lost is worrying. So we will revisit our advocacy program, and we will make sure we address this issue to reduce the carnage on our roads. We will make sure that we enforce that the two drivers regime is sustained so that at the end of the day, we sanitize our roads.”
Carnage on Ghana’s roads
Over 2,000 persons are estimated to have lost their lives through road accidents in 2021.
Provisional data compiled by the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) recently, revealed that the number of commuters killed in road traffic crashes for the first nine months of the year 2021 rose by 16.37% compared to the same period last year.
It increased from 1,827 between January and September 2020, to 2,126 in the first nine months of this year.
The data shows that 1,751 males made up of 193 below the age of 18 and 1,558 who are 18 years and above were killed.
Similarly, 375 females comprising 100 who are 18 years and below as well as 275 aged 18 years and above also died from crashes.
