General News of Friday, 8 June 2018

Source: todaygh.com

Let’s fix death trap roads in our communities!

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The role of good and quality roads cannot be overemphasized in the development of a country. In fact roads do not only open up countries, but more importantly facilitate the movement of goods and services.

Equally important is the obvious fact that good roads connect people and provide flexibility, mobility, opportunity and leisure as well. However, a cursory observation about the state of roads in our communities is nothing to write home about.

And describing such roads as deplorable, Weekend Today would assert, is being charitable with this serious subject matter. Bluntly speaking, some of the roads in our communities, especially those in the outskirts of the national capital, Accra, are nothing more than death traps!

In fact these are roads which do not only do damage to cars, but beyond that can kill, particularly if a pregnant woman who is in labour and travelling on such a road to the nearest hospital.

These community roads are in such terrible state that many of them have not been attended to for years while some ongoing ones have completely been abandoned.

And worse of all, the slightest rain is enough to completely fill such roads with water, making then unusable by vehicles. There are some with extremely ‘killer’ manholes and not potholes that if drivers are not extra-careful can end up doing permanent damage to their cars.

In fact, the situation becomes so bad that some commercial drivers decide not to do business in such communities, at the detriment of the residents.

It is in the light of the above that Weekend Today is making a passionate appeal to the powers-that-be to ensure that at least such death-trap community roads are rehabilitated and put in conditions that can be motorable. At least that will help prevent people from being cut out during heavy rains.

A stitch in time saves nine.