The Executive Director for the Bureau of Public Safety (BPS) has expressed concern over the Accra-Tema Motorway, one of Ghana’s most patronized roads, which has been plagued by severe and deadly motor accidents since its construction in 1965.
In a statement Nana Yaw Akwada said that a survey his agency conducted revealed “very disturbing developments” along the 19-kilometre stretch that links Accra and Tema, a city that sits on the Atlantic Coast of Ghana.
Poor urban planning and meagre design development are leading to tragic deaths – both for motorists and pedestrians, Akwada cites about the highway, also known as the Kwame Nkrumah Motorway. Therefore, he is imploring the government to do the following:
1) Reclassify the motorway to be reflected as an urban highway and accessorize it with traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and bus stops to allow for arterial and local roads to link.
2) Redefine with immediate effect, the buffer zone along the motorway and remove (or relocate) all encroachers; be it State or private facility.
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3) Provide effective year-long demarcation systems with an associated maintenance program to combat the high volume of traffic.
4) Provide police patrol services dedicated solely to enforce speeding and other traffic violations in addition to implementing security services for broken down vehicles.
According to numbers culminated in 2008 from BPS, nearly 65,000 vehicles crosses the motorway daily. Additionally, 2017 statistics disclose that car-related accidents account for the highest contributor of death in the country, compared to all public safety events, averaging seven deaths per day.
“We, therefore, implore your outfit to treat this subject with utmost urgency to prevent further carnage and needless deaths,” says Akwada.
