Driving along some roads in Accra has become unusually dangerous. It is not because these roads are pothole-filled but as a result of other factors which are hardly mentioned when the causes of accidents are discussed.
These roads carry heavy vehicular traffic but unfortunately, the road markings on them have faded leaving motorists to their fate on such dual or triple carriageways.
Driving along dual or triple carriageways on which such markings are faded or even not visible can be stressful for motorists.
For new drivers crisscrossing rather on such roads exacts stress on the drivers because, the markings which serve as boundaries to guide them keep to their lanes are absent.
We are constrained to return to this subject because the situation remains even after we had called the attention of the relevant authorities, the Department Of Urban Roads, to the dangerous anomaly earlier.
The situation is aggravated when there are no streetlights, as it is the case, with sections of the Achimota to Pokuase interchange, saddling motorists with the ado of determining the borders of the lanes by guesswork.
Shouldn’t some officials of the Department Of Urban Roads be assigned the task of driving along our roads periodically to find out their states and to intervene where necessary?
We can bet so should be the case administratively but perhaps some hiccups have made the task challenging to execute. Whatever be the case, it is our position that a better management of our roads would require periodic inspection to find out where interventions such as filling of potholes are required before these widen and pose danger to motorists, including the subject under review, the marking of roads especially, the multilane ones.
Were such periodic inspections to be carried out, the faded markings would have been noticed and something done about them.
It is ironic that when factors accounting for accidents on our roads are being discussed, the faded markings and how these contribute to mishaps do not crop up.
Reckless overtaking, over-speeding although responsible, for most accidents, are by no means the only factors responsible for these.
Drivers, as a result of the absence of markings sometimes, veer off their lines onto others and in the event, cause accidents when they get driven into by vehicles behind them, sometimes fatally especially, on highways.
We call on the Department Of Urban Roads to audit the state of the roads in Accra especially, the dual carriageway, from the general area of the Police Depot, Tesano to Pokuase and the Kasoa road. The dual carriageway from the 37 Military Hospital to the University of Ghana, Legon all need such attention. The road markings on almost all Accra major dual or triple carriageways are faded and need attention.
The risks caused by the faded markings are enormous and so, we cannot continue to allow the status quo to endanger motorists as though those in charge do not appreciate the implications of the anomaly.
It is also our take that we do periodic re-painting of the markings and not wait for these to be erased completely before we start marking them.
On the other hand, we could consider the placement of permanent demarcations which though expensive, would cost less in the long run. These permanent features, even reflectors to guide motorists at night, as we have on airport runways.