By Patience Azaglo
Accra, Dec. 16, GNA – The Street Sense Organisation (SSO), a road safety campaigner, has donated 100 branded road safety jackets to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), in Accra.
The items, worth US$4500 dollars, forms part of the organisation’s annual road safety awareness creation and education during and after Christmas and Easter festivities.
Mr Chris King, the Lawyer for SSO, said the organisation had been in the road safety space since 2014 creating the necessary awareness on the need to ensure safety on the country’s road as well as protect lives and properties.
He said one of the aims of SSO was to partner major stakeholders in the road safety space to achieve a common goal of reducing carnages on the road and one could not mention road safety without DVLA.
“…And this is one of the reasons why we are here today, to introduce ourselves as that relevant, strategic and proactive partner of road safety and to foster that symbiotic relationship between us and also find out how we can put practical interventions together to achieve our common goals,” he added.
Mr King noted that the quest for road safety was a global one and the United Nations Resolution 74/299 passed in 2020, we were actually in certain decade of action to improve road safety to a target of 50 per cent reduction in death.
“So, if we are here today, we want to join hands with DVLA to sing the song of road safety to reduce deaths on our roads in accordance with the UN Resolution 74/299,” he said.
Mr Kwasi Agyeman Busia, the Chief Executive Officer of DVLA, said the donation was timely and unique, adding “we need the support of everybody including the very drivers and pedestrians’ lives we are trying to protect to achieve our goals of reducing deaths on our roads”.
He said though the records had shown reduction in road accident in the third quarter of the year, “until we achieve the zero death, out work is not complete.”
He said their work was to ensure that cars and drivers were certified “but if the roads are not good, if the driver is not concentrating and pedestrians are not watching the light, then our work is not complete.”
This year, the SSO in partnership with Pernad Ricard, a Wines and Spirits company, embarked on road safety campaigns at the selected lorry stations in Greater Accra and Eastern Regions.
Aside that, SSO is also supporting road safety law enforcers with branded reflective vests to protect the officers while discharging their duties.
GNA