Another Road Carnage

Just when Ghanaians were close to heaving a sigh of relief that at last the highways have been rid of bloodletting, news about a ghastly accident that claimed 27 lives made the headlines yesterday.

Sounding morose following news about the accident, the Commanding Officer of the National Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Ghana Police Service said he visited the scene and his initial reaction was that it was an avoidable carnage.

But for us, what was unsettling was ACP Awuni Angwubutoge's remark that most of these accidents are attributable to human error on the part of drivers and the indifference of passengers in the face of recklessness of those at the steering wheels.

On the verge of raising his hands in despair, he lamented how all the efforts employed so far to stem or reduce accidents appear to have yielded little or nothing, regarding attitudinal changes on the part of especially commercial drivers.

The recklessness continues, especially regarding the indifference of passengers, even when they are being driven to their deaths.

Accidents have become so rampant that it is now news when a day or week passes without reports about any taking place in the country.

So much has been written about the need for sanity on our roads that sometimes we wonder whether we are going to witness any attitudinal change at all on the part of commercial drivers.

It is worth-noting that most of these fatal accidents involve commercial vehicles- a fact which speaks much about the extent of work needed to be done about those who man commercial vehicles.

Given the importance of such drivers, it would not be asking too much when we demand that more stringent measures be put in place to ensure that only those who meet such requirements are licensed to drive commercial vehicles.

The MTTU Chief, who said he visited the accident scene because he happened to be in the Northern Region when the carnage happened, opined that passengers on board one of the vehicles could have prevented it had they raised objections when their vehicle was veering onto another lane.

According to ACP Angwubutoge, three accidents involving a Yutong bus took place close to the spot where the carnage happened a couple of days ago, but because there were no fatalities, they did not make any headlines.

Unfortunately, when these accidents occur, we are quick to query the police for not being on the spot, forgetting that the security agents cannot be present throughout the stretch of the road network.

While holding brief for the police in one stretch, we can also frown at their superficial roadblock duties along the highways which have led to many bad drivers escaping their action. Some deficiencies such as fatigued driving and overloading can sometimes be easily detected; yet police personnel on such missions rarely raise any objection as they simply flag such drivers to drive on as though nothing is at stake.

Passengers who have any cause to object to the recklessness of drivers must be able to do so when the vehicles on which they are traveling arrive at such roadblocks.