Accidents on our roads and government's complicity

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot

March 21, 2009

If you lived in Ghana, you would be familiar with the frequent and devastating effects of senseless road accidents. They kill. They maim and deplete the country of productive human potential.

Yet, you will be surprised to learn that government, by her own actions or inactions, has yet to be aware of her complicity in the horror show on our roads.

How is that, you may ask.  And the answer is in the complicity:  The government licenses the driver, the roadway and the vehicles.

Mr. Hammer, the Minister for Transportation observed a few weeks back that “fatigue, carelessness, poor visibility and speeding” were the prime causes of road accidents in Ghana.

Of course, this was only part of his response.  He had more.  So, had even the president.

The minister suggested a driver’s log book and the requirement that drivers should be limited to not more than eight hours per day, with 30 minutes break after every four hours to help keep our roads safe.

President Mill's contribution was for law enforcement agencies "to adopt effective and ingenuous but legal means to force drivers to obey traffic rules to prevent the carnage that had hit Ghana’s highways in recent time."

Good but not good enough, especially the president’s submission, which was a mere remonstration.

Together, the statements compared very well with the proverbial hand wringing that went on under many circumstances and after every disastrous misfortune in the country.

You would think that government officials would note by now that this hand wringing excuses are not effective - not enough to reduce or blunt the spate of accidents on our roads.

How could these officials miss the one item that is at the center of the accidents, the vehicle?

It is the vehicle on the road and rules governing the issuance of road worthiness certificate for it that should draw the attention of officials before the catastrophe on the road happens. 

The vehicles that ply our roads are there for all to see.  The one condition that strikes the naked eye is the deplorable state of the conditions of some of these commercial vehicles.

And the freedom with which their owners or drivers overload these vehicles for use on our roads can best be described as homicidal.

The trucks on our trunk roads, with towering loads, often off-centered and leaning perilously to one side, yet are able to pass through police barriers unimpeded by the authorities.  

Or such vehicles that have capsized in the middle of our roadways, with the content spread out on the road.

These sights should bring to mind the laxity of mind that our officials bring to road safety.  

Recently, the curved access to the Accra Tema Motorway at the Tetteh Quashie interchange going east was the scene of a truck that had fallen flat on its side because of the overload it carried shifted!

The physical state of this particular vehicle and others could have told us why these accidents happen before they do.

Consider a single vehicle accident, no head-on collision, on a safe course on the Accra Tema Motorway in February of 2009, in which eight people died on the spot, in daylight, and you will begin to understand the nature of the problem.

The Accra Tema Motorway is one of the best, if not the best.  It is a better constructed roadway that may even compete favorably with many in the advanced countries of the world.  

This motorway is safe in the sense that it is a dual carriage way, broad enough to carry two lanes each way, passes over no mountain, ravines or Alps.

And the weather in Ghana is mostly stable all year round, with never an icy road condition or snow at any time. And for the most part, it is a straight course of only twenty odd miles to Tema.

Then an accident happens on it and eight people die!

What went wrong, with the roadway out of the equation?  Vehicle defect or driver negligence?

The driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel, even in broad day light, but there are no hazards to compound the negligence.  No valley to fall into or cliff to fall off from, so why so many deaths in this one accident?

If accidents of this sort could happen on the Tema Motorway and its Bush Highway extension, then heaven help us because they are the best we have built so far.  We are not in a position to build anything better in the near future.

That leaves us with the possibility that the vehicle itself may be at fault.  A rolling trap of death before the accident happened, defective and not road worthy, either for lack of maintenance or because of a fault or official malfeasance in the licensing.

I’ll put emphasis for blame on official licensing.

All of our vehicles are imports.   Many come in unworthy for road usage from source and they end up causing death on our roads.

Many of these vehicles are bought cheap at overseas' auctions because they are insurance write offs. Some come in as cargo vehicles only to be turned into passenger trucks and buses. 

And after clearances and after-market fabrications, they end up as death traps on our roads.

The commercial passenger vehicles are the worse offenders.  Already designated as defective at origin, many are converted from designated usage to another; from cargo to passenger, once they clear the ports in Ghana.

All our ports, custom and licensing agencies are under the control of government.  How are the vehicles able to escape rigorous inspections and restrictions?

There is a need for a proper regime for clearances of vehicles at our ports.  Imported vehicles with insurance write-off titles are problem and they need to be looked at carefully. 

They come in with titles that describe them as junk for recycling purposes; usually of unsound frame, chassis damaged because of prior serious accidents at country of origin. 

For some reason, they are released as such, only for unscrupulous importers to turn them for passenger usage.

Overloaded and speeding, all it takes is a step on the brake, and the former accident vehicle, compromised by a twisted chassis, summersaults to pile death on our roads.

The Tema Roadway accident may be one cause by such vehicle.

All it would take to fix the problem for the system to get back to some responsible order, so as to avoid these accidents, is a proper regime for official vehicle inspection and licensing. 

Start with checking the web for the road worthiness of the imported vehicle.

The checking of vehicle history can be done for a nominal fee, at no cost to government because it can be passed on to the importer. All that is required for the process integrity is the vehicle’s own identification number (VIN).

The VIN number is unique.

Imported vehicles that fail the web test can be cleared for parts use only.  But no title for road usage can ever be issued for a failed VIN number.

Those VINs that pass the inspection go on to be used as road worthy vehicles.

When a failed VIN ends up in an accident, the system can be traced to find out how the title was obtained and the malefactor punished.

There are safety features in the system.

The web site for checking is off shore and not in Ghana.  So, it is beyond the immediate reach and manipulation of the corrupt official.

The loop back to check the system in an accident case will put not only the importer but all officials that handled the vehicle, from import to licensing, at risk and liable for prosecution.

The heavy hand of the law has force and it ought to be used by victims and sympathizers in cases of this sort.  What is required are not speeches by government officials or President.  Parliament must act now.
 

 E. Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, March 21, 2009

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