Road crashes in Ghana have troublingly become very common. Each day people experience mild and major road crashes causing death and severe injuries in Ghana. Indeed, the latest figures from road traffic accidents between January and early March, 2020 suggest that five people died over the period every day.
The causes of road crashes in Ghana range from poor driving skills, indiscipline, bad conditions of the road, poor maintenance of vehicles and the disregard for traffic regulations. Though there are road safety campaigns every now and then, it is evident they haven’t made any proper impact.
The above-listed causes of road crashes highlight how gravely human error plays a role in most accidents. It is important for drivers to be physically and mentally fit as an essential element in road safety. But are there measures put in place to determine whether our drivers – especially those who drive commercial vehicles – are fit to drive to long distances?
This, and other related questions run through the minds of Ghanaians, especially for those who board public transport daily.
Psychology has shown that the reasons why humans make so many driving errors has to do with the inherent limitations of human information processing. It is necessary for humans to rely on three fallible mental functions; perception, attention and memory, and these must be at optimum levels throughout the performance of the task.
Research has shown that accidents pertaining to human error, sometimes occur as a result of perceptual error which is usually as a result of critical information below the threshold for seeing, thus either the light was too dim or the driver was blinded by the brightness.
In some cases, the driver may have a perceptual misjudgment. The most common cause of human error is when the driver fails to attend or notice critical information detected because his mental resources are fixated elsewhere. The driver rightly processes the information but fails to choose the correct response Example, “I meant to hit the brake pedal, but I hit the accelerator.”
According to the Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, 94% of road crashes are caused through human error. In 2018, the National Road Safety Commission (now Authority) accident statistics revealed about 80% of road crashes were caused by human errors while 20% caused by drunk-driving, speeding and bad road design.
In March 2019, more than 70 passengers died when the two buses they were travelling with collided head-on on the Tamale-Kintampo Highway. It is unclear what caused the collision but it is speculated that one of the drivers might have dozed off and run into the lane of the other from the opposite direction. Coincidentally, a year on, a similar accident occurred, where at least 28 persons got burnt as two buses collided on the same Highway (Kintampo) with investigations pointing towards human error as the cause.
As bad as some of our roads may be, it is imperative that drivers take responsibility while on the roads. The supervisory and sanctioning bodies must also take responsibility and punish offenders.
Drivers must be provided with all the necessary assistance to help execute their tasks to the letter. For example, authorities must make sure drivers set to undertake long distances have adequate rest, or even the addition of an extra driver to assist the main driver when tired.
Another worrying trend is the increase in drinking spots and pubs around lorry stations, which only entice drivers. Such businesses should not be allowed to operate so close to these lorry stations, and assemblies responsible for giving permits for such spots and pubs must freeze those permits and find ways of relocating such drinking centres.
Many Assemblies have laws against the siting of drinking spots near lorry stations. However, these spots keep springing up. This is a case of lax enforcement. It even goes beyond enforcement as this is against the regulations of these same assemblies. It beats minds why Assembly officials will give a permit for people to flout their own by-laws. The explanation provided by some of the Assemblies sometimes is that they give the permit for food joints and not alcohol and that as soon as the vendors obtain the permit, they add alcohol to what they are actually expected to be selling. What then becomes of the regular checks the Assemblies are expected to be conducted to ensure that people comply with the by-laws? Assemblies must audit all lorry stations in their jurisdictions and see whether drinking spots are sited close to them.
The Nation Road Safety Authority and the Municipal Assembly have tried to put in a number of measures to check road safety, but is it enough?
The general idea of night-time travels is something quite a number of people frown on, this is because recent instances of road crashes and fatalities have occurred either at night or at dawn — a pointer to the fact of the inattentiveness of the drivers owning to tiredness or sleep-driving. The human body naturally switches off at night time, and it’s very difficult for drivers to stay awake and alert during this time. As much as the drivers are against this move, we cannot forget how important human life is, and how much a healthy and active population affects economic growth.
Passengers also have a huge role to play in all of this. They must voice their concerns when drivers are engaging in indiscipline acts or endangering their lives by engaging in certain actions. Passengers must not hesitate to draw the attention of police officers if drivers are misbehaving on the roads. It is better to delay your journey to your preferred destination than not to arrive at all due to the recklessness of an unruly driver.
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The writer, Naa Adoley Moffatt, is a National Service person with Citi FM/Citi TV