National Road Safety Campaign Essay Competition Winner

Name: Simon Korku Elewode

School: Dagbamate MA Basic School, Akatsi

Class: JHS 2

Winner: Group 15-19 years age group

Children are especially vulnerable to the devastating impacts of road traffic accidents. Discuss practical measures that can be taken to improve road safety for children.”

MEASURES TO IMPROVE ROAD SAFETY FOR CHILDREN

Road traffic accidents occur during the movement of vehicles, motorbikes and humans when making use of the road in which people get killed or injured, the vehicles get damaged, goods destroyed. Children especially are vulnerable to these road traffic accidents that take their lives and some become disabled and live with these deformities for the rest of their lives. These accidents can be minimized if not completely prevented. Some practical measures to improve road safety for children from these unintentional occurrences are as follows. Educating the public on road safety measures is one of the practical measures that can be put in place to improve road safety for children. Authorities should must educate both adults and children on road safety measures. With this education, parents, teachers in schools will be well equipped to guide and teach these children how to use the road and be safe. These children will be taught how to cross the road by checking the left, right and left sides again before crossing. They will learn not to be playing along the road. Parents themselves will serve as a model for these children on the use of the road. With this education, drivers and motorists will become fully aware of the road signs on the road and will know where to speed up and where to reduce their speed. They will also be aware of the dangers involved if they do not obey the traffic rules and regulations. If this education is well done, accidents will reduce on the roads and the children will be safe.

Our road infrastructure system needs to be looked at as a safety measure to improve on safety on the roads. This can be done by advocating for improvement in our road infrastructure such as adding more sidewalks, pedestrian zebra crossings, speed bumps street lights and traffic lights at various junctions. Pedestrians using the sidewalks and zebra crossings reduces their risk of getting involved in accidents. Street lights will help both drivers and pedestrians to have good visibility at night and this reduces accidents on the roads at night. Speed bumps when constructed at vantage points such as where there are school, churches and markets, will reduce the speed at which drivers drive in those areas and children will be safe. If our road infrastructure is improved this way, the roads will be safe for the children.

To end with, drivers must take maintenance of their cars very seriously and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), National Road safety Authority and the Ghana Police Service should see to it that the cars that are on the roads are good enough to use the road. One of the causes of road accident is poor maintenance of the vehicles. If the drivers maintain their cars well, the car tires will but burst in the middle of the journey and the breaks of the cars will not fail on the way which normally result in fatal accidents. Driver who fail to adhere to the maintenance culture of using vehicle should be dealt with by the law of the nation. With this measure adequately implemented, there will be road safety for the children. If all the above practical measures are put into action, the devastating impact of road traffic accident on the vulnerable children will reduce and the children will be safe on the road.

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