The Executive Director of National Road Safety Authority Ing May Obiri Yeboah has said the dualization of major trunk roads and redesigning single Carriage roads to have sections for safe overtaking would help reduce the number of fatal head-on collisions being recorded.
The Executive Director of the Authority said this Friday when she led an entourage to the scene of Monday morning fatal accident which involved a Burkinabe bound DAF Articulated Truck which crashed two Buses killing 14 passengers at the spot on the Kyekyewere section of the Accra to Kumasi Highway of the Eastern Region.
“a lot of speeding goes on this road, wrongful overtaking, lot of heavy vehicles are on this section moving from Tema towards the northern section of our country even to the other neighboring countries and so with this heavy loads they are in queues a people do not have patients to wait so people will just want to find the time to overtake them so wrongfully overtaking is another cause”.
She added “one of the things that could also cure is dualization. And we all believe that, yes, people could drive wrongly or somebody’s tyre could best but if he is on the other side of the road probably there will be no head-on collision so dualization of this section from Accra to the Northern part of our country could greatly reduce the number of clashes that we have that is the head-on collisions.
According to her, single Carriage highway roads should also be redesign to have sections for safe overtaking.
“We talked about wrongful overtaking we should have areas, where people can do overtaking so enough space, should be created on our roads so that at a certain point maybe every 20Km or so some provision is made so that drivers can now overtake at this point. If they know that even if I follow this vehicle up to a point I will get the opportunity to overtake they will have the patient to wait till they get to that point”.
Ing. May Obiri Yeboah also suggest for compulsory resting for long-distance drivers.
“If we should have mandatory rest stops along the section from Accra to the Northern part where drivers could go rest for about 30 minutes before they continue and also vehicles moving for more than 200KM should have two drivers so one can take over from the other.”
The Head of Research, Education, and training of MTTDS, Superintendent Alexander Kwaku Obeng, who was part of the entourage, said the N6 road is a strategic road serving some West African countries and major cities and towns in Ghana therefore efforts must be made to make it safe by dualizing it.
He however said MTTD and NRSA Will continue to collaborate to intensify education for drivers on the need to strictly adhere to road traffic regulations.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Obed Ansah
