The night ban on heavy-duty trucks

All heavy-duty trucks, according to the head capo of this Republic, should be off our roads by 6:00 p.m. every day. In effect, no such trucks should ply our roads in the night. All regional commanders and officials of the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit are on orders to stop heavy duty vehicles and cargo trucks, as well as order them to park at safe locations throughout the night, across the country

The drivers of these vehicles are on orders to ensure that their parked vehicles display warning triangles and reflectors till 6:00 a.m. the next day, when they would be allowed to move. In a nation where reckless driving and improper parking have caused lots of accidents, claiming thousands of lives over the years, the directive appears to be one solution to the carnage on our roads.

There are several advantages in getting these trucks to rest during the night. Apart from eliminating the inconvenience they cause to drivers of smaller vehicles at night by erratic driving and frequent break-downs, which make them park on dangerous stretches of our road network, thus endangering the lives of other road users at night, the rest time decreed would make the drivers of these vehicles take a compulsory rest in the night.

It has been an unhealthy practice where heavy truck drivers take very little rest on their long journeys from the northern part of the country to the south, and vice versa. It would mean that not many of them would be tired when they take the wheels during the day.

It has been established that one of the major causes of accidents in Ghana, and many other third world countries, are the drivers who take to the wheels while tired and sleepy. When the element of tiredness is removed, and recklessness reduced to the barest minimum, we would surely reduce accidents on the road.

While The Chronicle welcomes the new measure as likely to help in the campaign to reduce the carnage on our roads, we do not ascribe to the notion that merely banning truck drivers at night would drastically reduce accidents.

Examining the causes of accidents in Ghana would be an interesting study in driver behaviour. Quite a number of accidents in this country have been recorded during the day, when visibility is very clear. It pre-supposes that we need other measures in addition to the ban on heavy truck drivers at night.

It is unfortunate to note that in this country, most commercial drivers are drawn from school drop-outs. It means that many such drivers are unable to read and appreciate road signs. It is a pity that even those who can read and understand road signs, tend to ignore them when they take to the road.

That is one of the major reasons why the carnage on our roads is far from abating. We would urge the police to make it unrewarding for drivers to ignore road signs. When that is done, it is likely to drastically reduce the many accidents that make statistics on the carnage on our roads grim reading.

We urge the police to monitor the ban on heavy trucks for a while and pronounce whether it is economically viable to continue to deny the use of our roads to these major means of transporting goods in the night.