At about 12.30 p.m. on September 12, 2013, one of the most bizarre accidents which defied all logic and common sense occurred on the Konongo-Kumasi highway. On that fateful day, a driver of a Hyundai mini bus (with registration number AW5106-13, travelling from Nkawkaw to Kumasi on the highway decided to pick a passenger who had flagged him at the Bomfa Junction.Instead of stopping at the junction to pick the passenger, the driver rather stopped at a far distance and, ignoring all road traffic regulations, started reversing on the highway to pick his passenger.
As he reversed, he entered the other lane and at that material time a commercial Ford mini bus (with registration number AW 3812-13— travelling from the same direction from Konongo to Kumasi—carrying 13 passengers appeared.
Since both vehicles were speeding, the driver of the Ford mini bus could not steer off the danger ahead, causing the two vehicles to collide in the middle of the road.
The Ford hit the rear of the Hyundai mini bus, somersaulted several times before landing in a nearby gutter, causing all the 13 passengers on board and the driver to sustain multiple head and body injuries.
Ironically, the driver of the Hyundai mini bus whose recklessness and disregard for road traffic regulations created the bizarre accident, together with his passengers, did not sustain injuries.
However, instead of reporting to the police, as mandated by road traffic regulations, the driver absconded moments after he realised the mess he had caused.
To date, the Konongo Divisional Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) Police Command has not succeeded in tracing him to assist in their investigations.
Earlier, on Tuesday, September 17, 2013, a two–year-old baby boy, together with his twin sister and mother, was run over by an unregistered Hyundai Accent Saloon car with trade mark DV6615 at the Anloga Junction in Kumasi.
The boy, identified only as Robert, and twin sister, identified as Roberta were walking on a pavement with their mother who had by then strapped the eight-month baby girl Anita at her back.
The driver of the unregistered Hyundai Accent Saloon who, according to the police, was speeding on the traffic-infested Airport roundabout-Anloga high street eventually lost control of the vehicle, veered off the road onto the pavement on which Robert, Roberta and their mother were walking and knocked them down.
Unfortunately for Robert, he fell flat on his stomach and the tyres of the unregistered vehicle smashed his head and instantly snuffed out his life.
His mother, twin sister and younger sibling suffered various degrees of injuries and medical officers at the Accident and Emergency Unit at the KATH had to work around the clock to save their lives.
To date, none of the drivers of both the Hyundai mini bus whose insanity maimed many of the 13 passengers on board the Ford Mini bus at Bomfa Junction on September 12, 2013 on the Konongo-Kumasi highway and the one who murdered Robert has been located by the police or arrested to assist in their investigation as at the time of writing this piece.
Sadly enough, just like the victims of the Anloga and Bomfa junction accidents, many drivers who have turned major highways of Ghana into slaughter houses, murdering many road users in the process in the name of accidents and maiming others for life, succeed in escaping police arrest, thus preventing them from facing justice.
Lack of comprehensive data
This is because, in spite of turning many of our major highways into trauma centres, successive governments mandated to protect the citizens of Ghana and other nationals who reside in the country have not made conscious effort to support the Police MTTU to build the requisite electronic data base of motorists to enhance easy tracking of drivers when necessary.
Over the years, road traffic accidents have been identified as one of the major causes of premature deaths in the country, and the Police MTTU, in collaboration with officials from the National Road Safety Commission, has been organising educational programmes to sensitise private and commercial drivers to the need to abide by road traffic regulations.
The MTTU and their collaborators also flood the media annually with statistics of road traffic accidents, not only to paint a gloomy picture of innocent blood shed on the highways but also to create the requisite attention for the major players to initiate policies and programmes that would reverse the trend.
However, instead of providing the requisite logistics and tools to the MTTU to enhance the enforcement of road safety regulations on the major highways and other links roads, this had not been so, giving motorists a field day on the road.
A total of 10,767 road users in Ghana perished from road accidents between 2008 and August 2013 and 64,355 had multiple injuries.
Statistics on road accidents since 2008 indicated that between 2008 and 2012, as many as 9,446 road users perished through vehicular accidents, with a total of 55,798 others sustaining various degrees of injuries.
Between January and August this year alone, as many as 1,323 road users, including 1,013 males and 310 females, have perished in Ghana through road accidents.
During this period, 8,557 others sustained multiple injuries as a result of these accidents and out of this number, 1,717 were pedestrians who were run over by vehicles.
Computing the road traffic statistics from 2008 to August this year therefore indicated that, the lives of as many as 10,767 road users in the country had been prematurely terminated through vehicular accidents, and the situation is getting worst by the day.
In 2008 for example, a total of 1,520 road users suffered deaths in road accidents in the country, while 7,433 others sustained multiple injuries, and since then road traffic accidents have been increasing by the day, creating fear and panic among the travelling public.
The death toll in accident cases nationwide increased to 1,587 the following year, with the injured also jumping to 9,765, and in 2010, the death toll on the road shot up to 1,760 but the number of injuries decreased to 11,147.
In 2011, those who perished from road accidents again increased to 2,330, with the injuries also jumping to 13,272, and in 2012, as many as 2,249 road users, including pedestrians, perished from road accidents across the country, while 14, 181 others were rendered permanently bedridden due to the injuries they sustained.
Vehicular destruction alarming
Apart from the number of deaths and injuries on the road, the national economy is also experiencing a serious setback as a result of the increasing number of vehicles that continue to be destroyed on the road on daily basis.
Over the last five years, a total of 95,953 commercial and private vehicles have been involved in road accidents, with many of them completely mangled beyond repairs.
MTTU needs tools to track, arrest and prosecute offending motorists.
Commenting on the spate of accidents and measures being used to control them, the Director General of the Police Motor Transport and Traffic Department, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Awuni Angwubotuge, said over the years, the MTTU had been collaborating with the Driver Vehicle and License Authority (DVLA) to educate motorists to abide by safety measures, but while some of them adhered to it, others completely ignored them.
Expressing concern about the situation, ACP Awuni said the MTTU lacked the requisite personnel and tools to enforce road traffic regulations across the country.
He mentioned breathalysers and to check drink-driving, speed guns to check those who had turned the highways into racecourses and patrol cars to patrol the highways to enforce road traffic regulations.
MTTU liaising with DVLA to build data
ACP Awuni said the inability of the MTTU to build an efficient and effective electronic data base of drivers to track motorists who had been flouting road traffic regulations had also affected their operations.
He said it was for this reason that the MTTU was liaising with the DVLA to build an electronic data base of all motorists as a basis to facilitate the enforcement of road traffic regulations.
“We have now acquired some computers and other gadgets that would be electronically used to build the data of all motorists in the country, and with this, we will succeed in tracking down every motorist who flouts road traffic regulations in any part of the country,” ACP Awuni confided in Daily Graphic in an interview.
On how the electronic data base could be used to track down offending motorists, ACP Awuni said the MTTU would use their electronic gadgets to feed the DVLA with lists of wanted motorists on their lists “and with this, the DVLA will supply us with useful information on those who will renew their licenses for us to arrest and prosecute them.”
“With our collaboration with the DVLA, we will succeed in creating sanity on the road. This is because we can easily track down all those who have been flouting road traffic regulations across the country,” he assured road users.
On why the delay in building such an electronic data, ACP Awuni noted that “better late than never. This is the time to do it . Many motorists have escaped arrests because of the lack of electronic data base, but they cannot escape now because we can easily track, arrest and prosecute them”
Electronic data base will facilitate the spot fines introduced recently.
He said the electronic database being built would also enhance the execution of the spot fines that had been introduced.
Expressing concern about the situation, ACP Awuni said the MTTU was more determined than ever to enforce road traffic regulations to create sanity that would make travelling more comfortable and enjoyable.
“Enforcements of road traffic regulations has been our main bane. Enforcement of the laws are very weak, but we will strengthen it to turn motorists into law abiding citizens,” he stated.
Official interference by high government officials, chiefs and opinion leaders are also a hindrance to enforcement of road traffic regulations.
ACP Awuni expressed concern about official interference of their operations, saying, “official interference on the enforcement of road traffic regulations had contributed to the spate of recklessness and the shedding of innocent blood on the road.”
Explaining, ACP Awuni noted, “high public officials, politicians, traditional rulers and even high ranking policemen besiege our offices anytime we arrest motorists who flout road traffic regulations.”
He said failure to heed to such pleadings always put a negative tag on MTTU officials who were determined to perform their duty.
“They always tag some of us as men who are against the system, so until we all come together to support the MTTU in their quest to weed out recalcitrant motorists, there is little we can do to create sanity on the road.”
“Road safety is not the preserve of the MTTU. With this trend of vehicular accidents in Ghana, the life of every road user is at stake. That is why all stakeholders should support the MTTU to enforce road traffic regulations to create sanity on the road,” he noted.
“When safety on the road becomes the concern of all, we are likely to achieve positive results to make travelling much more comfortable and enjoyable,” he declared.
As stated by ACP Awuni, road accidents were now assuming alarming dimension; hence, the need for all to join hands with the DVLA, the MTTU and the Road Safety Commission to initiate measures that would instil discipline on the road.
It is equally important for the state to consider road accidents as a health and economic issue by equipping the MTTU with the tools, logistics and personnel necessary to tackle safety issues head-on.
This is because providing the MTTU with adequate speed guns, breathalysers, patrol cars and electronic devices that can be to used to build electronic data base to enforce road regulations is less costly than the human resource we lose every day through human error.
By George Ernest Asare/Daily Graphic/Ghana
