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City of Accra Announces Campaign to Combat Drinking and Driving During Holiday Season

Vital Strategies commends Mayor Mohammed Adjei Sowah and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly on city-wide effort to save lives.

(New York, USA) – Vital Strategies congratulates the city of Accra, Ghana, today on the announcement of a new campaign to combat drinking and driving during the holiday season. Mayor Mohammed Adjei Sowah and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) announced the city-wide effort in a press release on Friday as part of the city’s participation in the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS).

According to the National Road Safety Commission, there were 951 road traffic deaths and over 13,000 crashes reported on Accra roads between 2011 and 2015. In 2017, 257 road traffic deaths in Accra have already been reported.

“Alcohol consumption is proven deadly on the roads, and the dangers are even greater during the holiday season,” said José Luis Castro, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vital Strategies. “Alcohol impairs a driver’s judgement, lowers alertness, and slows reaction time. We commend the city of Accra for tackling this risky behavior and coordinating with a strong enforcement effort to drive behavior change. In growing cities around the world like Accra, we must ensure that roads are safe for all travelers.”

The campaign will run on social media and on billboards throughout the city through January. The campaign includes a victim testimonial, sharing the story of a woman who was hit by a car and continues to have medical issues as a result. A video will be featured on social media with additional videos and images provided by the police and road safety advocates.

The Metropolitan Transport and Traffic Directorate (MTTD) will deploy a special task force to enforce drink driving laws during the campaign, using breathalyzers to test and apprehend drivers exceeding the national limit of 0.08 mg/ml blood alcohol concentration.

The campaign is the first for Accra under BIGRS, a global initiative of 10 cities working to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries, and was crafted with technical support from Vital Strategies. An estimated 1.25 million people are killed on the world’s roads annually.

About Vital Strategies

Vital Strategies is a global health organization that believes every person should be protected by a strong public health system. Our team combines evidence-based strategies with innovation to help develop and implement sound public health policies, manage programs efficiently, strengthen data systems, conduct research, and design strategic communication campaigns for policy and behavior change. To find out more, please visit vstrategystage.wpengine.com or Twitter @VitalStrat.

For further information or to arrange an interview with a Vital Strategies public health expert, please contact press@vitalstrategies.org