Street Sense to establish fund to help accident victims to recuperate
Street Sense Organisation, a road safety advocacy non-governmental organisation, has sworn in an 11-member Board of Trustees to support its campaign to reduce carnage on the country’s roads.
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The trustees, led by a legal practitioner, Mr Samson H.A.V. Oddoye, will provide advisory services for the organisation which is expected to establish a fund to help accident victims to recuperate.
The Registrar of the Ghana School of Law, Nana Osei Bonsu, swore in the trustees.
Emergency fund
The Chairman and CEO of Street Sense, Mr Oswald Lavoe, said the decision to establish the organisation was as a result of the experience of being a road accident victim and the support he received from a stranger when it happened.
To champion the cause of accident victims, he said, the organisation would in the future establish a fund devoted to helping vulnerable accident victims recuperate.
The fund would pay the medical bills of accident victims while they are receiving emergency care until their family members are located to refund the money.
That aside, he said, the organisation had plans to print road safety materials for distribution to schools nationwide as part of efforts to introduce schoolchildren to road safety issues.
He, therefore, appealed to corporate institutions and the public to support the organisation to reach out to schools.
Other objectives of the organisation include assisting the Ghana Highway Authority to redeploy and install road signs and fix defective ones, conducting research on pressing road safety issues and advising the government through the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) on policy directions and initiatives, encouraging and promoting tree planting along roads in collaboration with stakeholders as well as promoting volunteerism in all matters concerning road safety and sanitation.
On behalf of the trustees, Mr Oddoye said the group would work hard to make the organisation an enviable road safety one which can influence road safety policy through the NRSC.
He said the rate of accidents on the country’s roads was alarming, so all hands must be on deck to prevent the waste of lives and property.
Ghana’s road accident statistics present an unending trend of bloodbath on the country’s road, mainly as a result of what experts describe as ‘human error.’
Worrying statistics
Provisional figures from the NRSC indicate that from January to March this year, there were 2,900 road accidents, resulting in 508 deaths and injury to 2,687 people.
A breakdown of the annual figures shows that on the average six people die on the country’s roads.
The NRSC’s data also shows that almost 60 per cent of crash victims are within the productive bracket of 18-55 years. This situation is said to impact negatively on the country’s economy as it is estimated to cost 1.6 per cent of Ghana’s gross domestic products (GDP) annually.
The country’s GDP last year was estimated to be $37.86 billion.
Solution
With those numbers probably in mind, Mr Oddoye observed that the key to reducing the accident fatalities was to increase driver education.
“Most of the accidents on our roads are preventable because they are caused by human error, including speeding, turning at sharp curves, drink-driving and vehicles not well maintained. A well-educated driver who is conscious on the road is critical to reducing the fatalities,” he said.