Police in the Upper East region have expressed a grave alarm over the rate at which the deprived region is losing its working class to road crashes.

The concerns, voiced to Starr News in the regional capital, Bolgatanga, come after 90 people perished and 260 got injured in 250 reported cases alone in the region in the just-ended 2016. In 2015, no fewer than 54 persons, many of them belonging to the region’s labour force, drew their last breaths in separate tragedies on the road.

But 2016 saw the workers, who perished through crashes, alone outnumbering all the accident deaths recorded throughout the year gone before it. There were 65 workers amongst the lives lost in 2016, according to the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) with 214 motorbikes, 94 private vehicles and 81 commercial automobiles involved.

“The region should be worried about the rate. When you study the accident statistics critically, you’ll see that most of the dead were adults- those above 18. It is the adults who have died a lot. They are 65 in number and they constituted the working class,” the Upper East Regional MTTD Commander, DSP Daniel Kwao Teye, told Starr News.

“It is very alarming and it should be a cause for worry to the people of Upper East. If your working class is being wiped out, it should be of concern,” he added.

Speeding once took a dreadful grip of the top spot among the causes of road crash in the region. Later, unlawful overtaking grabbed the baton, sitting very tight for a couple of years on the number-one spot.

But reckless linking from minor roads to major ones, police say, has overtaken unlawful overtaking, claiming more lives than before. Reckless linking also has a close challenger in the region- drink driving and riding.
“The causes are largely attributed to the attitude of the people. I don’t see the need for us, the police, to be chasing somebody to wear a crash helmet when riders know so well that they are supposed to put on helmets. Our people are not careful at all when joining a major road from a minor road. Instead of ensuring that the major road is safe before they join, they just join.

“Driving under the influence of alcohol is also a major factor. When you go out at night, you’ll see a lot of people drinking and you’ll see a lot of motorcycles and vehicles parked close to the drinking spot. Those people, after drinking, will definitely use their vehicles and motorcycles back home. And at the end of the day, you’ll see a number of them dying through accidents. Some will not get home. Another factor is speeding. People ride in town as if they are competing,” DSP Teye stated.

Ban on riding saves Bawku from too many crashes- Police
Each of the region’s 13 municipalities and districts got its depressing share of the 2016 crashes with the busy regional capital recording the highest toll of 162 cases out of which 37 were fatal.

At Navrongo, capital of the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, 19 of the 37 cases reported claimed lives. Whilst the only 2 cases reported at Tongo in the Talensi District were deadly, 5 of the 9 cases recorded at Sandema in the Builsa North District also saw loss of lives. Statistics also shows that 10 of the 12 cases reported at Zebilla in the Bawku West District were disastrous and lives were ruined in 2 of the14 cases reported at Garu in the Garu-Tempane District. All 4 cases reported in the Bongo District were fatal and 4 out of the 10 cases that hit Bawku that year brought a tragic end to a short-distance ride.

The statistics gave the municipalities leading positions ahead of the districts. And it was so expected on account of the busier vehicular traffic a municipality normally would have as compared to a district. But what comes as a surprise is the Bawku Municipality falling behind rural districts like Garu-Tempane and Bawku West.

“For Bawku, I would say that it is largely due to the ban placed on them from riding for some time. You know when the ban was lifted, it was only women that were permitted to ride. Women are very careful; men are very adventurous. I can say that is what brought about the low rate of accident fatalities in Bawku as compared to that of Zebilla,” DSP Teye explained.

Government, long in the wake of the renewal of ethnic unrest in Bawku late in 2007, imposed a ban on motorcycling in 2011 in the area. The ban followed intelligence reports that motorbikes were the automobile means aiding armed rabble-rousers to get away with target killings within the municipality and on the outskirts.

The ban was reviewed in 2016, but the freedom to ride in that commercial hub was for a long time for women only. At present, men are only permitted to ride from 6:00am to 6:00pm, with nurses and other social service workers only enjoying an exclusive extension of that freedom from 6:00pm to 10:00pm.
Upper East has no recovery truck for accidents
Ghana’s Road Safety Act 683, Section 136, interprets vehicles to include “a motor vehicle, a motorcycle and a bicycle”.

But, in what Starr News has observed, bicyclists in the Upper East Region hardly see themselves as a category of automobile road users who should obey traffic rules and regulations. Oftentimes, they just move across even when the red traffic lights facing them are on.

Checks by Starr News have also revealed that the region does not have a recovery truck for towing vehicles that halt in the middle of the road. There have been cases of riders crashing to their deaths against broken-down articulators in the region especially where the warning triangle is missing in the middle of highways.

The MTTD has always called on the Ghana National Fire Service to borrow a recovery truck to tow vehicles from the road or out from gullies. But authorities say the region’s only recovery truck is now damaged and garaged in the firemen’s yard.

Whenever vehicles suddenly go kaput whilst in traffic, it is left there for mechanics to work on it whilst MTTD officers stand at both ends of the vehicle to wave for motorists to slow down. Such was the picture about 4 weeks ago on the Bolgatanga-Navrongo Highway where it took two days for mechanics to fix a damaged articulator after its wheels ground to a halt right on the white line that divides the dual-carriage road.