By Iddi Yire
Accra, Nov. 05, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama has appealed to Ghanaians to exercise patience with the newly introduced Traffitech traffic management system, assuring the public that the technology will significantly reduce road accidents and save lives.
The President made the appeal during an engagement with the Presidential Press Corps at the Presidency in Accra.
He said the system, which became operational on November 1, 2026, would be assessed through month-on-month comparisons with accident statistics recorded during the corresponding period last year.
“And I can assure you, if we bear with this Traffitech system, when you see the results of the reduction in accidents at the end of the year, because it started on November 1, we will do a month-to-month comparison with last year, and you yourself will be surprised at the number of lives this Traffitech system will save,” President Mahama said.
He urged motorists to reduce their speed and embrace the discipline the system was designed to promote.
“So, I think Ghanaians should bear with us and kill their speed,” he said.
President Mahama recounted an encounter with a driver who admitted he had never paid attention to his speedometer until the introduction of the Traffitech system.
“I mean, somebody was telling me until traffitech came, he had never looked at the speedometer when driving. He didn’t know the use of the speedometer,” the President said.
“He said, but now when he’s going, he looks forward and then his eyes keep going between the speedometer…”
The President described Traffitech as a major step towards modernising road safety management and reducing road traffic fatalities in Ghana.
He noted that 2,151 people lost their lives through road accidents in 2025, stressing that the figures represented fathers, mothers, children and other loved ones whose deaths could have been prevented.
President Mahama further disclosed that 474 people were killed through pedestrian knockdowns last year, largely due to excessive speeding by motorists.
He explained that a significant number of the victims were schoolchildren who were struck by vehicles because drivers could not stop in time.
“So, the general speed limit in any urban centre, including Accra is 50km/h. And so, you’re not supposed to go above 50km, because if you’re going at 50km, if something happens, you’re able to stop on time and prevent an accident.”
President Mahama said the introduction of the Traffitech initiative, would replace manual speed enforcement by police officers with technology-driven monitoring systems.
According to him, the move forms part of efforts to modernise traffic law enforcement and reduce disputes between motorists and law enforcement personnel.
“I believe that our societies are getting digital and the manual and analogue things we used to do are being phased out,” President Mahama said.
The President recalled that under the traditional system, police officers used speed guns to monitor vehicles and enforce traffic regulations.
“All we’ve done is replace that policeman with a machine. So, the machine itself will do that,” he stated.
He noted that the former approach often led to disagreements between motorists and police officers over alleged speed violations.
President Mahama explained that the Traffitech system automatically detects speeding violations, generates alerts and provides video evidence of the offending vehicle.
“Now the machine itself will check your speed, and you get an alert, and there’s a video. You see your car,” he said.
President Mahama explained that so far, the Traffitech module that had been activated was only for speeding and that there were many other modules, including crossing red lights at traffic lights and illegal parking, which had not been activated yet.
He disclosed that only the speed enforcement module of the system had been activated for now, while additional modules covering traffic light violations and illegal parking would be rolled out next year.
Responding to calls by the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) for bus stops to be cleared before full implementation of the system, President Mahama clarified that the current phase was solely focused on speed enforcement and not bus stop operations.
“So that thing that we should clear the bus stops before we introduce traffitech, it’s only to do with speeding. So far, they should just agree and not go above 50km/h. That’s all.”
GNA
Edited by Lydia Kukua Asamoah