File Photo
Indiscipline remains a formidable challenge on our roads. One of the stories in this issue is about how the Board Chairman of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) stopped the driver of an overloaded Benin Republic-registered vehicle close to Shangri La Hotel in Accra.
With the upward projecting cargo, in excess of permissible height, we can only wonder how the vehicle traversed the route from Aflao only to be stopped by a concerned NRSA Board Chairman.
If we had many more of the Board Chairman in the country, ready to intervene where necessary, many of our challenges would have been addressed.
The action might be a drop in the ocean but it is a trail blazer worthy of emulation by others.
The worry of the Board Chairman as contained in his expression summed up our challenges not only in Ghana but across the continent.
The driver of the long truck regardless of the visible road traffic breach must be used to such infractions. He would have been wary of the consequences of his impunity had he not taken road traffic regulations infractions for granted, having a defaulter over many months if not years.
If the breach caused so much commotion on the city road on the highway far away from the eyes of law enforcement officers, the story would have been different perhaps even parlous.
We congratulate the NRSA Board Chairman for his boldness and sense of duty board which emboldened him to take the action he took.
Perhaps the Police Administration should consider introducing hotlines for MTTD officers to be contacted when infractions are committed. This way, the necessary interventions can be brought to bear upon such anomalous situations.
Shouldn’t we also consider the ticketing system of penalising motorists who breach road traffic offences? This would not only serve as a potent deterrent it would be a source of money for government and also reduce caseloads in the motor courts.
We cannot complete this commentary without referencing the inconvenience overloaded charcoal trucks cause on both major highways from the northern sector towards the south and when they eventually meander their way into the city of Accra.
Such trucks are always overloaded, and dangerously so, posing danger to other road users.
In other to avoid tilting over, drivers of such trucks remain on the centre of the highways leaving other motorists to look for available opportunities to risk overtaking.
Seeing such charcoal trucks in Accra, we can only wonder how they evaded the checkpoints on the long stretch to the national capital where most of the charcoal is consumed.