Engineer Samuel Boamah Danquah, Road Design and Transportation Coordinator for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (AMA/BIGRS), who gave the advice, said driving on a good road was no justification for over-speeding.

"Much as speeding is fun; it was it is equally dangerous when it cannot be controlled in case of an emergency," he said, at a workshop organised for Journalists on Effective Ways the Media could report on Road Safety issues," Ing Danquah said.

He explained that when one drove at a higher speed, his or her ability to see properly reduced.

A vehicle is mandated to travel within a certain speed on a particular stretch of road, thus different stretches of roads have different legal speed limits.

The approved speed limits in urban areas range from 30 kilometres per hour (km/h) to 50km/h (20 to 30mph); 80 km/h (50mph) on Regional and Inter-Regional Highways and 90km/h (55 mph) on National Highways.

However, driving at a lower speed allowed for the driver to have a wider view of the road and its surroundings.

"When a speeding vehicle hits a pedestrian at 30km/hour, the body impact experienced is similar to the impact experienced when one jumps from the first floor of a building. Thus, there's a high possibility that the passenger who has been hit would survive, he said.

"When driving at a speed of 30km/hr and there's an object such that you would have to stop, you would need 14 metres for the brakes to fully apply. This is why we need to reduce excessive speeding on our roads."

The high rate of fatalities in road crashes, indicated by available statistics, Ing. Danquah said, may just represent numbers to those who had not lost any relatives through crashes.

   "However, within these statistics are breadwinners and people from various professional backgrounds whose continuous existence could have been of immense help to their families and the country as a whole".

Mr Osei Kuffour, Initiative Coordinator of AMA/BIGRS, said 84 per cent of all road deaths in 2018 were among vulnerable road users, with those aged 20 to 39 comprising the highest proportion of the dead. 

Additionally, 77 per cent of vehicles were observed to be speeding above the posted limit.

 Though 75 per cent of motorcycle drivers correctly wore helmets; only 45 per cent of motorcycle passengers correctly wore them.

To curb the increasing rate of road crashes, Mr Kuffour urged the Government to undertake a full assessment of speed limits across the City towards a review of the legislation on speeding and to coordinate the activities of road agencies, such as the Ghana Police Service, Motor Traffic and Transport Directorate, National Road Safety Authority, the Ministry of Roads and Highways (MRH), the Ministry of Transport (MOT), among others.

He said such road agencies should be equipped with sophisticated resources and tools to implement behaviour change programmes, while enforcing the laws.

ASP Richard Nyarko, Enforcement Coordinator of the AMA/BIGRS, lauded the Assembly and the Bloomberg Initiative, for the sophisticated gadgets they had provided the Taskforce to easily identify road offenders.

The taskforce enforces laws on drunk-driving, helmet use amongst cyclists and the wearing of seat belts.

He said they currently had a team of more than 17 Police officers drawn from the MTTDs in Accra.

His team, he said, had identified 78 routes among the various road corridors in the City and that the serious enforcement of road laws would start from Monday, November 26, on all the routes.