The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has begun the inspection of public commercial transport vehicles and drivers at the major bus terminals in the northern region as part of efforts to curb the alarming road traffic accidents in the country.
Personnel of the authority also educated passengers on their rights and the responsibility for the ArriveAlive Campaign.
The exercise began last Wednesday, simultaneously across the major private bus terminals in the regional capital, Tamale.
They checked the headlights, tyres, seatbelts, wipers and other safety installations required in a vehicle and state of mind of the drivers and the drivers’ licences.
The Northern Region Planning Manager of the National Road Safety Authority, Mr. Sufianu Abdul Rahaman explained the law requires every vehicle earmarked for a journey to be road worthy and fit for purpose, therefore, the pre-departure checks forms part of the inspectorate mandate of the authority.
He indicated this is aimed at minimising the number of road traffic crashes experienced in many parts of the country.
He told THE CUSTODIAN in an interview that most of the vehicles were in good conditions and therefore passed the pre-departure test, stating that, “the headlights were working, all seatbelts functioning, except one wasn’t working at the VVIP station and we asked them to fix it as soon as possible and we would be doing another checks to ensure most of these things are fixed.”
The NRSA officials however encountered one driver at the VVIP bus terminal who could not produce his driver’s licence but when he was queried he said he had left it in Accra and could produce it in 24hours time.
Mr. Abdul-Rahaman said it is a clear violation of the law to drive without a licence and urged all drivers to avoid such practices.
“What we went to the terminals to do was to check the safety of the vehicles and how competent are the drivers to take the passengers to their destinations alive. It is surprising that somebody would drive such a vehicle and claim that his licence is somewhere; he didn’t carry it along.
And the managers said the practice is to keep the licence at their headquarters and then renew for them as and when it is due for renewal but that’s strange and it is a violation of the laws of the country” he maintained.
Meanwhile, THE CUSTODIAN also observed many of the drivers did not also have co-drivers as stipulated by law for every journey beyond 8-hours or 500 kilometres.
The NRSA Planning Manager said there should be two drivers so that one would start the journey and the other will take over at a relay point to complete it.
