Police apprehend 31 drivers for over-speeding on Accra-Nsawam Road

• The AMA boss has led an operation to check overspeeding on the Accra-Nsawam road

• In all, 31 drivers were arrested

• The AMA boss said this is to ensure that lives are preserved on the roads

A special team from the Accra Central Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) have apprehended 31 drivers for driving above the approved speed limit of 50 km/hr in the city.

The drivers who were all males were arrested on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, when the team, led by the AMA boss, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, embarked on a speed enforcement operation on the Abeka Junction to Achimota overhead section of the J.A. Kufuor Avenue (Accra- Nsawam Road), a statement has said.

The operation which was in collaboration with the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS), sought to among other things, compel drivers to obey the visible speed limits and to reduce road crashes recorded in the city.

Speaking to the media, Mohammed Adjei Sowah said the objective of the Assembly is to ensure safety on the roads hence the operation to compel motorists to reduce their speeds.

"The main objective of the Assembly is to ensure safety, this is a special exercise we have been doing for the past three years, we have supported the Police with logistics and built their capacities to enforce speeding regulations in the city.

"The Assembly had supported the Police with policing accessories such as Speed Guns, reflective cones, lighting batons, reflective vests, directional and stop signages, as well as capacity building to enforce road safety regulations in the city to reduce road crashes," he said.

He added that available data on road crashes indicated that speeding was a major cause of those crashes and that the Assembly, in collaboration with the police, had identified some major hotspots they visit weekly to enforce speed limit laws.

"Data from the Motor, Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) indicates that 70 percent of road crash victims were pedestrians. A life lost means a lot to us, everybody matters," he said.

He cautioned motorists to comply with the 50km/h and 30km/h speed limits in urban and school areas respectively, as stipulated in the Ghana Road Traffic Regulations (L.I.2180) when plying the city's roads so as to reduce the rate of road crashes.

He also debunked the notion that the essence of the exercise was to generate revenue, adding that the motivation behind the operation was to save lives but not for economic interest.

"The motivation is to save lives and not to make money, moreover fines from the operation were paid directly into the consolidated fund," he said.

He assured that the drivers would be put before a court and charged with exceeding the speed limits.

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