Correspondence from Eastern Region:

Three persons including a driver, his mate and one other escaped unhurt when a truck full of yams they were occupying, overturned at Aboasa in the Asuogyaman District of the Eastern Region.

The accident happened Tuesday morning when the vehicle rammed into a pothole, dislocating the steering wheel in the process and tossing the truck into the nearby bush before landing on the driver’s side.

The truck with registration number GW-4562-15 was transporting the goods from Mankango in the Savannah Region to Accra when the accident occurred.

Officials from the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service were on the scene by the time GhanaWeb got there at 11:30am.
Driver of the vehicle, Amponsah Daniel, 45, in an interview with GhanaWeb said he ran into a nearby pothole at 9:30am, resulting in the steering wheel coming off the vehicle.

“I ran into a pothole and the steering wheel came off and the truck ended up falling on its side,” he said.

According to him, he and his mate and one other occupant, managed to escape through the passenger side of vehicle which was facing upwards.

The thirty-year-old road which links Atimpoku to the Volta Region is ridden with potholes with drivers usually seen maneuvering through in a bid to avoid them.

Though there are regular maintenance works to fill the potholes, new ones keep emerging as road users who use the stretch are saddled with the inconveniences.

The driver who blamed the accident on the pothole called on authorities to fix the problem to prevent accidents.

Assemblyman for Nnudu-Aboasa Electoral Area, Patrick Asare who was at the scene said he was in regular touch with the Asuogyaman District Assembly on measures to temporarily fix the pothole menace on the stretch.

Though temporal measures are put in place to solve the problem, much more needs to be done to ensure a lasting solution.

“They used to fill it [potholes] with chippings but it has reached a level where I don’t think the chippings can solve the problem so there is the need for the government to come in and construct a new road for us. The road is almost 30 years old and I think it has overstayed its duration,” Mr. Asare noted.