Perhaps you have never come across any road accident to see the way limbs are thrown about to give you a real picture of what it means. May be too, you have not come across the gory sight of open bowels after an accident. If you had, you would realise that accidents are not for some people alone but, anyone could become a victim. That is the reason why we should start finding out how to keep our roads safe.
The waste of precious lives who should not be dead must give all of us cause to say the time has come for us to sing a loud chorus, enough is enough! The number of deaths that have been recorded on our roads is just too much. It is a scary thing because one does not know who will be the next. I have simply chosen Apam Junction because it has become one place where so much blood has been spilt over the past few years.
The number of accidents that have been recorded on this road gives me the feeling that either the gods at Apam Junction are angry or there is something wrong with the engineering of the road. Therefore, the people of Apam should be asked to appease the gods or allow those who are Christians to fast and pray to save travelers on this stretch of the Accra-Cape Coast road and keep the area free from accidents because we are losing so many lives.
In case it is bad engineering, we must call upon the experts to get back to work on the road to put things right. If it means reconstructing the road to enable us to save lives, let it be so. For me, such a project will be a pilot leading to the repair of other accident spots throughout the country.
In case they do not know exactly what the cause is, then they can start to research. It is not clear whether the Highway Authorities have a system of getting feedback on what happens on our roads. If not, the time has come for them to liaise with the Police Service, the Ghana Road and Safety Commission, Municipal and District Assemblies to look at statistics on road accidents to find out why some sections of the roads have more accidents than the rest. It is true that we blame drivers for over-speeding and careless driving, but these alone cannot be assigned as reasons why some parts of our roads have more accidents than the rest.
I have been on the Accra-Cape Coast road and seen bill-boards talking about the number of accidents that have been recorded at some portions of the road to scare drivers. But, these have not worked because we still have accidents at these spots. Therefore, there must be something wrong and that is why we must find out the reasons. Simply putting it down to the poor driving attitude will not be enough.
In fact, the statistics show that the Apam junction road is a special case for accidents. . On March 12 March this year, it was reported that fourteen people were killed after a motor accident at Gomoa Mprumeim on the Apam Junction-Winneba Highway. Last year, on December 29, there was an accident resulting in a number of people dying also near the Apam Junction. The Daily Graphic reported on May 12, 2014 that there was death and a number of casualties near the Apan Junction. The year before, the Ghana News Agency reported that the late headmaster of the Apam Senior High School, Samuel Ewuah Bruce died near Apam Junction on September 26, 2013. On November 21, 2009 ten people died near the Apam Junction.
The same statistics may exist for roads in other parts of the country and so, it is time we took a serious look at what must be done. It is not enough to simply blame drivers alone because the real reason may not be drink-driving or carelessness on the roads. We should start looking at whether our engineers are helping to build our roads the way they should. The situation is becoming like what happens in our hospitals – many people go there and never return and we only conclude that that is the way they were meant to go without questioning whether there was any malpractice.
In some countries, the medical authorities have protocols that ensure that all deaths in health facilities are properly investigated to find out if proper care was given; if proper medication was given and any other commissions or omissions might have led to the death. This is to ensure that lives are not wasted. It also helps to protect others who may be admitted in hospital for similar conditions, because lessons are learned every step of the way.
In our case, we have come to accept everything and give everything to God. That is the reason why the country is not moving in the direction that it should. Take the recent accident on the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange for instance, no serious investigations will be done. What will only happen is that the side of the road from where the container fell from will be repaired. We will therefore not be able to know the real cause and why the accident happened.
Why we do not take seriously investigating issues in this country might be because those who are in authority to order these investigations do not suffer the problems we go through daily. They get the best trained drivers from the State Protocol Department and get Police outriders to lead them to their destinations and back. The rest of us are left to our fate and so, whatever happens to us does not matter.
It is about time that we the people who put them up to manage our affairs demanded that things must change. We must demand, for example, that when lights go off at a sub-station because of a fault, investigations are conducted to find out if it was a human mistake; if what is needed to print cards for the National Health Insurance scheme runs out without those in charge ensuring that supplies are made, we must find out why such a lapse happened; if students fail their examinations, we must investigate to determine whether the teachers played their part and not simply conclude that the students did not study. It is by learning from what went wrong that we will be able to know how to put things right in the country.
I believe that we have so much to gain by getting to the bottom of why things go wrong in the country at every level. For this reason, it would be necessary that we start looking at our roads to see if there are any engineering defects. So much blood has been spilt at Apam Junction, however, we may be able to avoid future shedding of blood if we took some steps now. It may not cost much but would bring us high returns in the number of lives that we save.
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