President John Dramani Mahama has described the newly activated Traffic Technology (TraffiTech-GH) system as a life-saving initiative designed to reduce Ghana’s growing road accident rates, particularly incidents resulting from excessive speeding. Speaking to the Presidential Press Corps at the Jubilee House yesterday, the President expressed concern over the approximately 2,151 people who died through road accidents in Ghana last year, stressing that the figures represented human lives and not merely statistics.
He noted that the victims were fathers, mothers, children, siblings and other members of families whose lives had been lost through preventable road crashes. “Of that number, 474 Ghanaians were killed in what we call pedestrian knockdowns,” President Mahama revealed. He further observed that many of the victims were schoolchildren who were knocked down by speeding vehicles while returning home from school.
“A good number of them were schoolchildren coming from school, getting knocked down by a car because somebody is doing 80 kilometres per hour, 100 kilometres per hour. If a child steps on the road, you can’t stop,” he said. President Mahama underscored the importance of enforcing the general speed limit of 50 kilometres per hour in urban areas, explaining that maintaining such speeds would give motorists a better chance of stopping in time to avoid collisions.
The new enforcement measures, which took effect on November 1, are currently targeted exclusively at speeding offences. Addressing concerns that TraffiTech-GH was primarily intended to generate revenue for the government, the President dismissed the claims, clarifying that only the speeding enforcement component of the system had been activated.
He explained that the technology would be rolled out in phases, with additional enforcement modules targeting traffic light violations and illegal parking expected to be introduced in subsequent years. The President also clarified that the Motor Traffic and Transport Department’s (MTTD) enforcement activities under the new system were unrelated to the ongoing exercise to clear bus stops or matters involving commercial transport operators.
Speed limit
In sharing a story to highlight the impact of the enforcement, the President remarked that the new system had compelled drivers to pay attention to their speedometers, many for the first time. “Someone mentioned to me that prior to the introduction of TraffiTech, he had never glanced at his speedometer.
Now, he constantly checks both the speedometer and the road to ensure he doesn’t exceed 50 kilometres per hour,” he stated. President Mahama urged the public to be patient with the inconvenience, assuring them that a month-to-month comparison with last year would show a significant reduction in accidents.
