By Bob Roco ROMEO
A rise in insurance stickers, manipulated by vehicle owners and their agents to outwit law enforcement agencies, has put insurance companies and the industry’s regulator on the edge amid a surge in road accidents.
The rise in fake insurance stickers has been one of the factors that has left many road accident victims in pain and neglected because compensations that would have helped the victims to meet their cost of medicare are unpaid due to the fact that the vehicles were not properly insured.
This came to light when the National Insurance Commission (NIC) Central Regional Office donated vests to the Agona Swedru Divisional of the MTTD to motivate them to go about their daily activities.
Madam Nicholina Adamuah, the Central Regional Manager of the NIC, who is also the President of the Chartered Insurance Ladies Association and the Country Director for the African Insurance Women Association (AIWA), noted with regret that the carelessness and negligence of some drivers on the road, lack of proper maintenance of vehicles and the bad roads have caused the nation to lose some irreplaceable human resources, parents and students.
What makes the situation worrisome, according to her, is the activities of ‘charlatans’ who issue fake insurance stickers to drivers or car owners. These deeds, she lamented, make it difficult or impossible for accident victims to claim insurance compensation easily from vehicles that have been involved in the accident.
She, therefore, expressed the hope that support from the NIC to the MTTD will go a long way to motivate the police to arrest vehicles with expired or fake insurance stickers.
She also asked drivers and passengers to ensure that the vehicles they find themselves in have genuine insurance stickers by simply dialing the NIC short code *920*57# to the registration numbers of the respective car numbers with their mobile phones. Madam Nicholina Adamuah warned issuers of fake insurance stickers to desist from the nefarious deeds to avoid arrest.
Provisional Statistics for the first quarter of 2024 in the Central Regional as indicated by the National Road Safety Authority testify that road carnages in the country have risen more than that of the first quarter of last year’s statistics.
Donating the vests to MTTD, as part of a week-long sensitization by the National Insurance Commission in the area, Ms Adumuah, noted that the Commission has over the past years been supporting the MTTD through training and some items like the reflectors, cadaver pouch or human remains pouch (HRP), and phones to aid their daily activities as expected.
A four-hour road operation by the road enforcement agencies, organized by the National Insurance Commission (NIC), brought together the National Road Safety Authority, DVLA, M-360, and the MTTD at vantage points in Agona Swedru, leading to the arrest of many vehicles whose drivers have either expired or fake insurance stickers. Some drivers who committed other minor traffic offenses were advised by the MTTD officers to do the right thing.
Ms Adamuah, who was heard and seen advising both passengers and drivers via radio broadcasts and on the road expressed regret about the failure of drivers to heed the dos and don’ts on the road.
She cited instances where toddlers were seen on the laps of their parents in the front seats, driving with either defaced or raised car registration plates, overloaded cars, and the like as deeds that drivers and passengers abhor.
