Calls to ban night travels to reduce road accident has been kicked against by the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU).
After a series of accidents recently there are calls to ban night-time long-distance travels in Ghana to reduce carnages.
But GPRTU believes that road crashes are mainly caused by the poor nature of the country’s roads and not due to driver error.
They say the calls to ban the travels is not exactly the solution to the problem.
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John Tetteh who is a trustee of GPRTU speaking to Citi News said Ghana should consider other options and not such a ban.
“When you ban night travelling, it wouldn’t solve the problem. Are we the only nation that travels at night? There are other nations that travel at night so let’s do the right thing,” he said.
Meanwhile, some drivers blamed the poor nature of roads for the recurring fatal crashes.
“Most of the accidents are not caused by drivers. Almost all our roads are in poor states and most of the roads are single-lanes. The roads are just bad. I’ve heard the minister argue that the Kintampo road is good and such accidents should not have happened there. To me, the accidents on that road are caused by a spirit,” one driver said.
Another driver said, “Our roads are bad so when a driver overtakes a car, it is likely to result in an accident. When the roads are good, there will be no accident and drivers will not be tired in the first place.”
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On Monday dawn [March 9, 2020] a fatal crash involving a Sprinter bus and Grandbird bus on the Tamale-Kintampo road led to the death of 31 people with many of them burnt beyond recognition due to a resultant fire outbreak.
