Blue kiosks or drinking bars situated near or inside lorry stations in the Eastern Region will soon be closed down to deny drivers access to alcohol before they embark on journeys.
The exercise will seek to prevent drink-driving among motorists with the aim of reducing road carnage to its barest minimum in the Eastern Region.
The Eastern Regional Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Mr Abdulai Bawa Ghamsah, disclosed this to the eveningmailgh.com in Koforidua during a workshop for some youth groups in the region.
The workshop was part of a special partnership programme between the Commission and the National Youth Authority (NYA) to instill in the youth the need for road safety education among their peers and community members.
Expressing worry that the Eastern region was leading in road accident statistics in the country, Mr Ghamsah indicated that his outfit together with stakeholders would be intensifying inspections at the lorry stations to ensure that drivers abide by basic traffic regulations.
“The commission is embarking on a journey to enforce pre-departure checks in most of the lorry terminals to ensure that basic things like the wiper, tyres and driver behaviour and dress codes are checked before they set off on their journeys,”
“If you don’t fit, if you don’t qualify or if you don’t pass through the process, we will advise you to offload the passengers into another vehicle so that you will go and do the right thing before you can be allowed to reload,”
“One of the major things we will do is to check on those drinking bars that are so close to the lorry terminals where some of these hard liquors are sold and drivers sometimes run there before they come and start their vehicles”
“We want to help to eradicate most of their address so that they can be a distance away from the lorry terminals. It may help,” Mr Ghamsah said.
Some of the participants at the workshop expressed elation and explained that the knowledge gained would equip them to help reduce road crashes in the region.
Source: http://eveningmailgh.com
