40 VEHICLES IMPOUNDED FOR VIOLATING ROAD SAFETY RULES (PAGE 29, 0CT 28, 2010)

A task force made up of personnel from the Tema Regional police Command, Driver and Vehicle licensing Authority (DVLA) in Tema and the Road Safety Commission on Tuesday impounded about 40 commercial and private vehicles for violation of road safety regulations.
The drivers who are to be processed for court were arrested for driving on the shoulders of the road causing traffic jam, driving without licences, careless driving, overloading, drink driving, underage drivers and heavy duty trucks loaded with chippings that had not been covered, which posed danger to other road users.
The exercise was also to check roadworthiness of vehicles and fake documentation.
The task force which undertook the exercise on the main road linking the Ashaiman Timber Market and the Motorway Roundabout, was on the road before 8am, and by 10 am, 40 vehicles had been arrested for various offences. The vehicles were escorted to the Ashaiman Divisional Police Command park whilst the drivers waited to be processed for court.
The Tema DVLA Director, Alhaji Iddrisu Huseini, who was part of the task force, said from his technical point of view at least one vehicle out of 20 which used the road during the period they were around was not roadworthy.
He explained that some had their certificates expired while others had worn-out tyres with others having used transparent waterproof materials as a substitute for damaged windscreens.
Alhaji Huseini noted that when vehicles were not roadworthy passengers suffered the risk most and appealed to passengers to ensure that they played greater roles in checking drivers on the road.
He said the number of vehicles arriving in the country kept on increasing, stating that every year the number of vehicles registered increased by about 80 per cent and the greater number of the vehicles operated in Accra and Tema.
The Regional Police MTTU Commander, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Daniel Ansong Dankyi, who led the exercise, said it was targeting to achieve discipline on the road from now and beyond Christmas and warned that those arrested would be processed for court.
He said a number of indisciplined practices were recorded on the road during this period of the year, stressing that during the third quarter of the year, the police recorded 109 accidents in the region involving 188 vehicles, which caused 37 deaths, with 97 people suffering various degrees of injury.
The Regional Police Public Relations Officer, Chief Inspector Olivia Turkson, said the exercise was undertaken to bring sanity on the road.
She said it would also be used as a platform to educate the drivers on the need to observe road traffic regulations to prevent accidents and therefore appealed to the public to co-operate with the police to make the exercise a success.
Chief Inspector Turkson commended the DVLA for providing a vehicle for the exercise.