The avoidable loss of lives on the Madina-Adenta-Aburi Highway, reached a crescendo on Thursday when the umpteenth life was lost.
The obstructive demonstration thereof has put the general indiscipline on our roads on the spotlight. Without doubt a lot of things are wrong with our use of both intra-city and inter-city roads in the country.
A lot has been discussed about the latter. The necessary transformational action from the authorities and motorists alike are yet to be seen.
Given the seeming rising number of lives lost on roads in Accra, the role of indiscipline cannot be marginalized in any meaningful discussion.
Our intra-city roads have never been more dangerous; we can bet. Motorists will testify to this fact with sufficient empirical evidences.
Motorcycles, as a result of their affordable costs to many a resident in the city, are choices of the youth.
With the relatively reduced action by law enforcement agents to check these motorcycle riders, it constitutes one of the many causes of accidents and even deaths on our roads as they ride as they please without restrictions. The Rambo-style they use in crisscrossing cars on the roads has led to many accidents and nobody cares.
With their speed exceeding in many cases what cars use in the city of Accra alongside their disregard for traffic regulations which they hardly understand and appreciate anyway, motorcyclists, the Okadas, are responsible for many deaths and maiming of pedestrians.
Motorcyclists do not observe traffic lights; a convention which should be reversed if the effort at restoring sanity on our roads is to be achieved.
With the urge to cruise on the city’s roads to end their individual trips, the inclination towards accidents by the Okadas increases. The disregard for road traffic regulations and the aversion for helmets especially for pillion riders have come at a huge cost.
We have also observed the rather dangerous yet ignored trend of using mobile phones by pedestrians as they cross even busy and dangerous roads.
Pedestrians must also play their part as they patronize the roads by being disciplined. Receiving calls or making same when crossing busy roads is obviously a crazy thing to do.
Perhaps we need legislation on the use of mobile phones because currently there are no such laws to regulate the use of the devices.
We have had a cause to editorialise about the non-functioning of traffic lights at some critical areas of the city but nobody has taken the necessary action to step in when this happens as they often do. The result is that untrained hawkers step in to direct traffic even at such dangerous spots as the East Legon road as it exits onto the busy Shiashie to Legon road.
There must be a means by which the nearest police MTTD detachment can determine when their interventions are needed at places where traffic lights are not working.
Many streetlights are not working and we would rather as a matter of urgency ask that these are fixed because the trend accounts for many accidents at dusk. The foregone submitted for the attention of the relevant authorities.