By Helena Selby
Life is precious, just like an egg, if not handled carefully; its breakage can never be mended. It is true that sometimes no matter how careful one is, accidents are bound to happen. Human beings are fallible just like machine which are made by human beings, it is therefore the obligation of human beings to be careful in the way they handle the machine they made themselves. Vehicles are man made so ought to be handled carefully so as to prevent accident which is a probability on our roads. No nation is immune to road accidents but the issue its frequent occurrence is the central idea. The incident of road accidents in Ghana increase day in day out, despite the education given always and the arrest of many drivers for breech of road regulations to serve as a scapegoat many drivers take it for granted.
Habit of commercial drivers in Ghana
It is very surprising that, in the frequent occurrence of roads the involvement of private own vehicles is very rare. It is as well rare for one to see vehicles of transport companies involved. Could it be that these drivers from these two areas are more careful than the private owned buses like the urvan and 207 buses which are registered under the Ghana Private Roads Transportation Union (G.P.R.T.U) of the Trade Union Congress (TUC)? Could it be that their vehicles are not in a better shape or they are not properly trained to drive safely? It is very pathetic to see how bad vehicles conditions are in a station ready to take passengers. These vehicles could either have a bad battery system, faulty engine, faulty breaks and anything one can think of. Petrol tanks will have its entrance exposed without cover, seat belts will be in bad shape and even passenger seats will even have exposed metal which can hurt somebody.
Drivers always take the words of passengers for granted and take into consideration the money they collect from passengers. It is always a normal phenomenon to hear a driver ignoring a passenger on his or her complain about over speeding, over loading, bad shape of seats and even broken windscreen or a broken/cracked side mirror. The frequent answers these reckless drivers give is that, they are in their office and cannot be thought how to do their job and that what matters is they are taken to their destination safely. Reckless driving is an everyday issue on the Ghanaian road. Drivers always due to their rush for more passengers always prefer to jump traffic light without the supervision of a policeman. They make a U-turn at where they are not supposing to hence causing congestion.
For some drivers, the education on the importance of seat belt has gone a long way. Realizing how important it is to put on seat belts, they always make it a point to put on their seat belt whenever they are on the road. They drive at a very top speed, because they feel they are protected by the seat belts, the safety of the passengers is the least of their concern, no wonder drivers rarely die in road accidents.. Instead of giving passenger an alternative of transferring their loads to their destination, they prefer in carrying their entire heavy load on top of the bus. During the later part of last year, on the Kpone road a bus fell sideways because it was carrying too much load. Fortunately the passengers and the driver were slightly injured. Drivers always have the habit of dodging traffic to the extent that they divert from their section of the road to the other section. The unusual thing is that they always find the police to be at fault when they are arrested.
Habits of passengers
It is true that drivers are always the cause of these road accidents, but passengers ought to be cautioned to learn to cherish their lives passionately since the behaviour of some passenger can be attributed to many accidents on our roads. A passenger will see a faulty car and just ignore the condition and board it. If a passenger complain about a car being faulty and that it has to be taken from the street, a fellow passenger will accuse him or her to be conceited. A passenger will as well see a bus with the right number of people on board but ignore it and add to it to become over loaded. It is disbelieving to see a fellow passenger yelling at the other because he or she complained about over speeding. The reason is that they are in a hurry. A driver over loads and when he is being stopped by a policeman, passengers crumble to the extent that, they even advice the driver to drive on.
Road accidents
The occurrence of road accidents of late reduced in a way but a shocking one just re-surfaced. According to a report of the February 16 2009 edition of the Chronicle newspaper 54 perished in a fatal accident. According to the report 38 people dies in an accident at Kadia, in the Savelugu-Nanton District (61 kilometers north of Tamale) on the Tamale-Bolgatanga road. Most of the victims had their skulls broken, while others had their skulls broken, while others had disfigured faces and mutilated bodies. The accident involved four vehicles. Over 56 other people obtained several injuries. The vehicles involved in the accident included an articulator truck with registration number NR1096, a 33 seater Benz bus with registration number NR 3283 Q, a 56 DAF bus and a blue bus with registration numbers GR5054 J andGW991 S respectively. The nature of the accident so far has being described as the worst ever recorded on the Tamale-Bolgatanga trunk road.
There was another fatal accident on the same road Sunday February 15, 2009 on the Kintampo-Kumasi road, which saw over 20 passengers dead.I6 other passenger perished in an accident on the Tema –Akosombo road.
Roads and people
Highways or motorways are roads intended for traveling relatively fast over long distances, due to how dangerous and busy these roads are, it is always advisable for people not crossing such roads. However the situation is very different in this side of the world, people cross motorways like commercial streets, even pregnant women dear to cross such roads as well as children. Not long ago a man was hit by a car on the motorway; there was no trace of the car as the incident was a hit and run. At certain points too long vehicles are left on the streets especially on the motorway faulty without triangle to show it. Sometimes, on the motorway cars on a very high speed crush these faulty vehicles.
Police and road accidents
The police is meant to ensure the safety of the people, however things that are expected from drivers and the things needed in cars to be in a good shape for the safety of the passenger is not checked. The visible thing that the police usually check is overloading, apart from that checking things like seats in disorder, fire extinguisher, side mirror and other important thing is very rare. The drivers only calm them down with just some few Cedis only to be set free. The police ought to check all the necessary things which will help prevent these road accidents since it is one of their responsibilities.
Conclusion
Road accident as simple as it may sound has great effect on the country. People especially foreigners will not have the interest in driving. Even the citizen will find it difficult traveling a long distance to transact business which may lead to low standard of living. The nation’s labour force will gradually be diminishing as 56 people are able to perish instantly in a single road accident. As police are trying their best to help control road accidents, the Driver Vehicle License Authority (DVLA) can also try their possible mean to help check properly the ability drivers before issuing a license. Driver as well as passenger also have a role to play.
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