Dealing With Carnage On Our Roads

Roads are a very important means of transport and form an integral part of any process towards the meaningful development of a people.
WHERE there are roads, commerce, social activities and any form of human endeavour thrive, as both people and goods are ferried to various destinations.

In view of the importance attached to roads, various governments who have been in charge of managing Ghana’s economy have always committed a huge chunk of the annual budget to the construction and repair of road networks across the country.

However, instead of the huge investments in them to shore up our economic gains by improving accessibility to all parts of the country and thereby cut down on the man-hours lost due to poor road networks, our roads have become death traps.

No day passes without the loss of lives or the maiming of very productive citizens on our roads. It is always a miracle when people travel far and near and return home safely.

To us at Today , most of these road crashes are due to man-made errors resulting from impatience and poor judgment on the part of drivers.Some are also not properly schooled on road signs and others care very little about the maintenance of their vehicles, while our poorly lit streets, even within big towns and cities, also contribute to the road carnage.

We find this trend very worrying, as it does not only continuously cause pain to families but also impacts negatively on the nation’s productivity and increases the health expenditure of both families and the nation when people die or are maimed through road crashes.

Today is not oblivious to the fact that stakeholders such as the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) are doing their bit to ensure sanity on our roads.

There are too many rickety vehicles on our roads and it is a wonder that they are roadworthy and fit to transport people each day.

We also believe it is time we fixed speed limits especially on our long-distance vehicles, while the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) take steps to properly supervise the placement of road signs on all our roads to aid drivers.

This carnage on our roads must stop and it needs our concerted efforts.