What about the nature of our roads as a cause of accidents

Since the beginning of the new year, hardly a day passes without a news bulletin having as part of its news package, an item informing Ghanaians of a fresh accident that occurred somewhere in the country. In fact the situation gets overly frightening with the mention of the number of deaths so far in the first quarter of the year.

Unofficial figures show that over 300 able bodied humans have lost their lives since the beginning of the year. Many other victims are still receiving attention in many of the hospitals and other health centres and others have been disabled through the numerous road accidents recorded so far. Surely this figure is frightening to the extent that it makes it difficult for people to settle on the decision to travel, more so by public transport.

Many have been the causes outlined by experts and non-experts alike. A story in the Ghanaian Times of Friday 27th March, 2009, reported that the Minister of Roads and Highways and stakeholders settled on high speed, fatigue, wrongful overtaking, tyre bursts, driving under the influence of alcohol, injury control and disabled vehicles left unattended to, as some of the major causes of the road accidents in the country.

Of course there are also those who believe that the spate of accidents that this new year has brought has spiritual connotations especially as the country just came out of a closely contested election. People from this school think and believe that some politicians are using these innocent victims as ?sacrificial lambs? for their political gains. Well, there are those who are ?rubbishing? thought s of this nature and think that the accidents are as a result of mans carelessness and has nothing to do with spiritualism.

My is not to tell which of the schools of thought is right but judging from the kind of politicians we have I would not just wholly push aside the spiritual assertion just as I would not wholly agree with the assertion.. As for the case of human carelessness, I think we all agree. But we should not also forget that ?black magic? can also make the driver behind the wheels confused, dazed, stressed and sleepy at times that everybody sees him/her healthy and the eventuality becomes a fatal accident.

All the causes mentioned above are possibilities that are mentioned anytime an accident occurs. One other thing that escapes us when outlining the possible causes of road accident is the nature of roads and the maintenance culture in terms of roads and highways. This is an important cause of accident that needs to be considered by the government and all concerned if we want to ease the spate of accidents on our roads whilst also looking at the other causes mentioned.

The roads situation in the country is appalling, to say the least. Most of the roads in that country are infested with potholes that can be graduated into human trap holes. These potholes, are fresh and others have seen so many ?hamattans? and this make one wonder whether the roads these hole are found are roads used or just abandoned.

Most of these roads I am talking about are major and busy roads in the country. For instance the Cape Coast to Kumasi road has portions full of potholes that can cause accidents. Others are the Kumasi-Techiman-Kintampo roads, Tamale-Wa road and Bolgatanga-Wa road among other important roads in the country.

Road construction in Ghana has become a ?any contractor can do it? something. Standards are compromised when contracts are given and the results are the numerous shoddy works that surrounds us.

This aside, the issue of maintenance is also a problem. The rule for road construction has been that, one year retention is given to contractors to monitor and repair defects on the road constructed before the final percentage of the total cost of the project is paid to him/her (contractor). After this period the road is left to fate to take care of it. Anything that happens on it becomes nobody?s business.

The story is told of a foreigner who was given a contract to patch some potholes (spot improvement) on a stretch of road. When he visited the road to see the holes for himself, he was shocked by the largeness of the holes he saw and could not help but ask the Ghanaian engineer who accompanied him whether there were people around when the potholes surfaced initially. That is the Ghanaian for you. He sees a problem and instead of solving it at the initial stages, allows the problem to escalate to a deplorable proportion before he tries to find solutions to the problem.

Potholes on our roads can be a major cause of road accident in this country if we do not do anything about it. This is mostly not mentioned because it is interwoven in other causes such as carelessness of drivers and over speeding. Most at times when we are in commercial vehicles travelling on these pothole infested roads, we see drivers trying as much as possible to dodge these potholes as they drive along. Sometimes in the event of dodging a pothole, they drivers find themselves in the lane of on coming vehicles and this sometimes leads to a crush. When this happens, the experts relate it to carelessness forgetting that the poor nature of the road led to the carelessness of the driver at that particular time.

Another instance where a pothole can cause accident is that when a driver who is not familiar with a road speeds on it. He may be in the required speed but when he instantly meets a pothole that he did not expect, he or she gets ?shacked up? and confused as to the decision to take. Most at times, in instances like that, accidents occur.

There is also the instance where a driver who is not familiar with a pothole infested road all of a sudden sees a pothole in front of him and because he is speeding cannot do without bumping his vehicle in the potholes.. In a case like this the tyre can burst or the driver can loose his balance and the result can be a fatal accident that can take away important lives.

After outlining what a pothole infested road can do to vehicles in terms of aiding in causing accidents in the country, I will like to know what the government is doing in the area of road repairs and maintenance. On most of our roads are toll booths that take money from drivers that ply those roads. What are the monies used for? Are the monies used for the purpose for which they are collected or they go into individual pockets?

There is also the case of the road fund. What is happening to the fund? I think Ghanaians will like to know because the fund has been in existence for so many years. These questions arise because repairs are hardly seen on our roads. Road shoulders are chopping off and erosion taking over and making roads narrow; small potholes are expanding and graduating into manhole levels every single day.
Information gathered revealed that the country spend over 165million US dollars on road accident, that is, about 1.6 percent of our GDP annually, not to forget the millions of Ghana cedis that goes into road construction nationwide. This is a huge amount and it behoves on the government and all who matter to ensure that our roads are in good shape to ensure smooth driving and ease the spate of accidents. The other causes of road accidents should also be looked into and the necessary solutions found so as to reduce the carnage on our roads.

Ghana is a precious land and so are its inhabitants; every single one of them.

Credit: Sagito Musah Issakah
The writer is a civil servant.