Mt Hagen Traffic Office has ended its two months of traffic awareness program yesterday.
The awareness was to inform pedestrians and drivers on traffic rules and signs and how to use the newly installed traffic lights in the City.
Traffic Officers were out on the road yesterday morning near traffic light areas teaching people the traffic rules and speed limits.
Drivers are still breaking traffic rules, by driving through red lights along the newly built ADB funded four-lane road, causing fatal accidents in the last three months.
So far, more than 10 people died in car accidents and hit and run incidents along the new four-lane road.
Mt Hagen Traffic Officer, Simon Kik, there are speed signs placed along the road from Kagamuga Airport all the way to Mount Hagen Town but drivers are not paying attention to these signs and keep speeding along that road.
The traffic lights are a new thing in Mt Hagen City, therefore this awareness is vital.
Traffic Officer, Simon Kik says that those who break traffic rules are mostly arrogant drivers or drunkards.
People are also crossing the road when the pedestrian crossing light is red.
Western Highlands Province has the highest number of fraudulent claims at the Motor Vehicle Insurance Limited, and so MVIL has now partnered with traffic police to improve the claims processes.
Positive outcomes of this partnership have resulted in MVIL equipping the traffic department to ensure traffic rules are followed, and genuine accident reports are filed to minimize fraudulent claims so that legitimate claims are compensated.
Currently, over 80 per cent of motor vehicle accident claims are from Mt Hagen.
Such traffic awareness will help people to understand and follow traffic rules and minimize road accidents.
MVIL Managing Director, Michael Makap, said accident reports and police reports are the number on claims that they receive in their claims process.
“Without an accident report, there are no claims. Not even a doctor or lawyer can interfere with this process. The accident report is attended to by a police traffic officer who gathers all the necessary information and facilitates the claim,” said Makap.
The immediate need for the Mt Hagen Traffic Office is for MVIL or the government to install CCTV.
This will help them to arrest and charge pedestrians and drivers who break traffic rules.
“We don’t want to blame just anyone in the case of an accident that is why we are calling on the authorities to install CCTV so we can follow up on actual video footage and hold those breaking the rules accountable for reckless driving, said officer Kik.
