WOMEN ATTEND WORKSHOP ON ROAD SAFETY (PAGE 35, JUNE 9, 2010)

A ROAD safety awareness workshop aimed at sensitising women to the dangers and effects of road traffic crashes on the country’s human resource development, has ended in Koforidua.
The event was to help women appreciate the magnitude of road traffic crashes in the country and the urgent need for them to get actively involved in the reduction and prevention of fatalities on the roads.
After the training, the women were expected to become advocates of road safety by supporting rigorous road safety campaigns in their respective homes, communities, churches and mosques, schools, markets and workplaces.
Organised by the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), the workshop brought together women from the various ministries, departments and agencies, as well as representatives from the various trade groups and associations in the New Juaben Municipality.
In an address, the Executive Director of the NRSC, Mr Noble J. Appiah, said 70 per cent of road traffic deaths in the country involved men, a situation that had placed a heavy responsibility of family upbringing on women in society.
“In event of the death of more men in road crashes, most homes are left without breadwinners; this has serious socio-economic implications for women and their families, the community and the country,” he stated.
Mr Appiah, therefore, urged women to take the leading role by championing and being advocates in road safety wherever they found themselves, adding that “we should demand road safety as pedestrians and passengers all the time”.
He reminded the participants that road safety was not about accidents and the loss of human lives, but the “pain and suffering as well as the socio-economic impact on our women.”
Mr Appiah expressed worry over some Ghanaians’ careless attitudes towards accidents, stressing, “It is time we disabused our minds that every road crash that claims lives is the will of God.”
“As passengers when a driver misbehaves, we must check him in order to curb rampant road crashes, failure of which we will find ourselves killed through a drivers’ recklessness,” he reminded the women.
Giving an overview of the current road safety records in the country, the Director of Planning and Programmes of the NRSC, Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, said the Eastern, Greater Accra, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions accounted for 70 per cent of road traffic crashes since 1998.
According to her, 42 per cent of persons killed annually were pedestrians, made of 23 per cent children below the age of 16 while 70 per cent of persons killed annually were in the active group age between 16 and 55.