Rampant Road Accidents On Our Roads

Statistics indicate that road crashes from January to May this year claimed one thousand and eight lives which is more than ten percent over last year's figure. Are majority of Ghanaians aware that in the last five months the country lost that number of lives through road crashes? Does the ordinary driver and “bookman” at the various transport unions have an idea about this number of deaths? How about personnel of law enforcement agencies who receive money from drivers so as to turn a blind eye to issues of overloading of vehicles? There are more questions than answers. Knowledge of such information regarding road crashes has the tendency of changing the attitude of all citizens. It is sad that statistics on road accidents have been generated over the years and yet the same problems exist. It then brings to the fore how the media, the transport unions and vehicle owners, the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) and the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) have communicated these statistics to drivers and other road users. With the proliferation of radio and television stations in the country, it is expected that such information will reach the grassroot and bring about a safety conscious attitude by all road users.

Unfortunately, road safety issues do not attract enough publicity and then the agenda moves on to something else while the NRSC and the MTTD under constant pressure to ensure that road crashes are brought to the barest minimum, the situation on the ground depicts that either the education on road safety has a long way to go or the public is just refusing to adhere to road safety measures. Obviously it is a combination of the two. The recent carnage and its consequent statistics should be a wake-up call for the NRSC, GPRTU, transport unions, and other transport owners as well as the Police MTTD to go the extra mile to reduce road crashes. Some measures that can be undertaken are: the GPRTU and other sister transport unions should collaborate with the NRSC and the MTTD to train Road Safety officers for all branches across the country. This may be seen as seeking a perfect situation; but, as Nelson Mandela once said, it seems impossible until it is done. Imagine that some bookmen encourage overloading and sometimes ask passengers to sit on the roof of passenger vehicles and are not bothered the least about the consequences in case of any road crash. This is where the role of the trained safety officers of the transport union is critical as they will ensure that before a vehicle leaves any station, all the safety tips are considered. The safety officers should also be trained to take passengers’ complaints concerning the recklessness of drivers. It is suggested that vehicles which ply long journey employ two drivers instead of a driver who has to drive for twelve to eighteen hours. Because these drivers do a return journey, some of them resort to energy drink to keep awake on the journey. It is no secret that driver fatigue is a major contributory factor to road crashes. The MTTD and NRSC should take the road safety campaigns to the lorry stations and offices of the transport unions with the target of seeing a drastic reduction in road accidents. This campaign should be done together with GPRTU and other sister transport unions as well as private transport owners. The Police MTTD should discourage officers from receiving bribes in order to turn a blind eye to overloaded vehicles of luggage and passengers. In addition, passengers should speak up for their safety. The thousands of live lost through road crashes are irredeemable; however, the road carnage can be reduced to the barest minimum when the media, NSRC, MTTD, GPRTU, among others pursue an aggressive road safety agenda throughout the country.
We can do this!

BY: ALEX BLEGE, A FREELANCE JOURNALIST.

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