Bad roads, reckless driving, road-traffic accidents
In the first week of May 2025, two friends who travelled from Accra to Kumasi shared their experiences with me.
Driving his SUV, the first said it took him seven hours to get to Kumasi.
The return trip the following day took the same time.
When I asked why it took him so long in his strong/solid SUV, he replied, “the road is terrible, and people drive dangerously/recklessly/lawlessly.
Indeed, it was/is like the jungle law of survival not only of the fittest, but the unscrupulous as well!”
The second went by VIP-Transport to Kumasi. It took eight hours.
He stated that the driver drove carefully/sensibly to the annoyance of three young men who kept goading/harassing him to drive faster.
Their reason? They were graduating at 4pm that day at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and therefore, wanted the driver to speed so they would not be late for the ceremony!
Accidents
Earlier, on Tuesday April 22, 2025, an accident at Amanase on the Accra-Kumasi Highway, involving a fuel-tanker and a Sprinter bus left eleven dead and many critically injured.
On May 1, 2025, there was an accident at Yeji, Bono-East, on the Kumasi-Tamale Highway.
Eight people were killed, with eleven in critical condition.
I asked myself, what has changed since my 2017 article on road traffic accidents (RTAs), “Motorway Kamikaze Driving?” Parts read:
Accra-Tema Motorway
In a recent publication, Ghana’s death toll of over 1,700 casualties in the first nine months of 2016 was adjudged one of the highest in the world.
As a little boy living in Michel Camp with my parents in the early 1960s, I had the pleasure and privilege of being one of the early users of the newly constructed Accra-Tema
Motorway, taking rides with my parents anytime they came to Accra.
The 19-kilometre solid concrete road was modelled on the German autobahn and was intended by President Osagyefo Dr Kwame to be the first of many such motorways to link major cities in Ghana.
Today, however, in my retirement, even though it is the fastest way of getting to Accra from my home, I avoid the motorway like a plague if I can.
Why? It has become a death-trap with accidents occurring frequently.
People drive on it at top speeds…, overtaking every vehicle in sight, while crisscrossing and zigzagging to avoid potholes!
Indeed, some drive like Japanese pilots on a Kamikaze mission!
Kamikaze
Towards the end of World War 2 in 1945, Japan resorted to desperate measures as the end appeared to be in sight for them.
She trained pilots in the Japanese Air Force for suicide missions of crashing their planes loaded with explosives on any Allied targets they saw, especially warships.
They were the equivalent of today’s suicide bombers.
Today, such is the fury and ferocity of driving on the Accra-Tema Motorway!
Indiscipline
Many years ago, I took my driving test in a car with the manual or stick-shift gears. Before then, my driving instructor told me that,” if you do not drive in the correct gears, the vehicle will drive you by stalling on you and stopping.”
I was also taught defensive driving and road courtesy.
Today, modern technology has replaced manual gear vehicles with automatic transmissions.
This has reduced driving to speeding hard and then jamming on the brakes for an instant stop!
Unfortunately, driving automatic vehicles demands very little thinking!
So, drivers can afford to drive with one hand, while making a mobile phone call with the other.
Though I do not have statistics to support this, the thinking is that some accidents have been caused with loss of lives because the drivers were distracted while driving and phoning.
Sometimes, some of the things we call roads are anything, but roads.
Department of Urban Roads, please fix the road linking Spintex Road to communities 18, 20 and Lashibi!
Way out
Elsewhere, driving offences are punishable by an increase in insurance premium for the offender.
Where it persists, the offending driver has his driving license revoked.
Indeed, at the time of writing on Tuesday, December 13, 2016, BBC announced the imposition of an $80,000 fine on Ivorian football star Yaya Toure for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Additionally, he has been banned from driving for eighteen months.
Again, very fast buses meant for ambulances in advanced countries, on decommissioning, are imported into Ghana and metal seats welded in them to play the role of passenger vehicles!
In the event of an accident, the welded metals do the killing of innocent passengers. Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA), why do you register decommissioned ambulances brought to Ghana as passenger vehicles? Please ban them to save lives.
Recklessly driving unroadworthy cars by drivers aside, our roads themselves are not car-worthy! If the Police checked reckless drivers, ensured that vehicles were roadworthy, and prosecuted errant drivers, casualties from road traffic accidents would be reduced.This is on the assumption that government will provide good and safe roads.
A combination of reckless driving, poorly maintained vehicles and bad roads makes driving very unsafe in Ghana.
Unfortunately, the Police do not appear to enforce breaches of driving regulations by arraigning offenders before the courts.
Mr IGP, why are vehicles with DP and DV plates speeding about so confidently?
Discussion
While “DV” number plates stand for “Defective Vehicle,” “DP” stands for “Drive-from-Port.” They are meant for temporary use only.
So, how come they are a permanent feature at weddings these days? Again, why do they speed overtaking every vehicle in sight?
Ghana Police, please enforce our road traffic regulations to save lives! Need I say more?
A word to a wise, is enough!
Leaders, lead by example! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up!
The writer is Former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association,
Nairobi, Kenya/Council Chairman, Family Health University,
Accra.
E-mail: dkfrimpong@yahoo.com
