133 PERSONS KILLED IN ROAD ACCIDENTS IN ER...Between January and June, this year (PAGE 20)

ONE Hundred and thirty-three persons were killed in road accidents in the Eastern Region between January and June, this year.
This implied that on the average, about 22 people perished in road carnage in the region every month.
Statistics made available to the Daily Graphic by the Eastern Regional Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU), showed that 68 people lost their lives between January and March, this year in 330 accidents involving 433 vehicles.
The number of deaths, however, reduced between April and June, when 65 persons lost their lives in 380 accidents involving 520 vehicles, a decrease of 4.42 per cent over that of the first quarter of the year.
As many as 449 persons sustained various degrees of injury in accidents during the first quarter of the year while 615 persons got injured in the second quarter.
Speaking in an interview at Koforidua, the Eastern Regional Commander of the MTTU, Superintendent James S. Peprah said, “many innocent road users have suffered untold hardships, with some of them being maimed as a result of road accidents”.
“If we can lose about 133 lives within six months in one region, how safe are we on our roads?”, Supt Peprah asked.
According to him, most of the fatal accidents occurred along the Apedwa Junction-Bunso-Nkawkaw stretch of the Accra-Kumasi Highway, which he described as “extremely accident prone area”.
Supt Peprah attributed the causes of road fatalities to drivers’ ignorance of road signs, the use of KIA trucks to convey passengers, speeding, drunk driving, wrongful overtaking and the frequent breakdown of overloaded trucks on the highway.
He stated that the intensification of highway patrols by his outfit had immensely reduced the use of KIA trucks to convey passengers on the highways, a situation which contributed to high fatalities on the roads.
The MTTU Commander also mentioned the intensification of patrols on the highways to check speeding, overtaking on dangerous portions of roads, drunk driving as well as educating both drivers and passengers on how to comport themselves on the roads, as part of the measures to reduce carnage on the roads.
He appealed to motorists to be extremely cautious on the Accra-Kumasi Highway and refrain from alcoholic drinks when driving in order to arrive safely at their destinations.