As part of the road safety campaign of the Ghana Police Service, the Police Certified Riding Ambassadors (POCRA) initiative has been inaugurated to help curb indiscipline on Ghana’s roads.
The inauguration was held at the National Police Headquarters in Accra on Thursday, 7 July 2022.
The police-certified riding ambassadors will support police efforts as follows:
- They will serve as examples for other riders to ensure that they have insurance, the motorbikes are registered, and also put on their crash helmets.
- While on the road, they will not ride on the wrong side of the road, they will stop at the red light, and they will ensure their pillion riders, if any, are also wearing crash helmets.
- They will educate and encourage other riders at every opportunity to comply with traffic rules and regulations.
- Whenever possible, they will share information on other law-abiding riders they come across for such persons to be recognised and celebrated by the police.
- They will generally serve as examples of road discipline for other riders to emulate.
In all, 104 private dispatch motor riders from Accra and Tema were screened and vetted by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Police Service and subsequently taken through an orientation exercise.
The orientation covered topics such as defensive riding, consequences of rider indiscipline, ethics, customer care and road traffic regulations among others.
The Ashanti Regional component of the Police Certified Riding Ambassadors was inaugurated in Kumasi on Friday, July 8, 2022.
POCRA initiative is aimed at sensitising the riding public on the need to comply with road traffic rules and regulations in order to reduce the increasing spate of crashes, injuries and deaths attributable to the use of motorbikes.
It is also intended to complement the ongoing Police Action Against Rider Indiscipline (Operation PAARI).