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Tell me about death on our
roads
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
It is a pleasure to read about the enforcement of this new “Axle
load policy” announced by Mr. Joe Gadisu, the Transportation
Minister of Ghana.
It is also a shame to know that, after so many accidents caused
by overloaded trucks in Ghana, this policy, long and strongly
enforced in Burkina Faso, is now going to be operative in the
country this late.
That it took the detention of some Ghanaian drivers, on the
Burkina Faso side of the border, for the minister to endorse
this policy is the point of my shame.
The sight of huge overloaded, badly maintained, smoke spewing
trucks on our roads has not only been embarrassing but also
deadly. However, as always in cases like this, the axle policy
enforcement is better late than never.
Mr Joe Gidisu, who announced this policy said it was in keeping
with ECOWAS regulations. It is a pity he didn’t say it was in
agreement with common sense.
He also said that “steps would be taken to restore the weighing
scales installed at the Tema and Takoradi ports to full
operations as soon as practicable but in the interim the Ghana
Highway Authority will make available portable weigh bridges at
the ports to regulate loading.”
You mean there has been no provision for this critical safety
measure all this time? We don’t have to wait for it then. No
scales at the ports so the police can use their judgment by
eyeballing trucks on the roads, right? No humor intended here.
A truck with freight off balance on its trailer, moaning and
groaning its way on our roads can easily be spotted. Overloaded
truck go very slow uphill and faster down. Sight and sound and
common sense should do for now until we have the full machinery
in place, at the ports and midway stations on our roads, to do
the job.
Common sense is a critical point in the safety measures to be
applied. But, sometimes, in the case of truck owners and
operators, common sense can be overridden by greed. They think
by overloading they can increase the chance of making more money
per trip.
The message must be brought to them that, on the contrary,
overloading is a costly truck operation. It diminishes fuel
economy and causes faster brake and tire failure, not to mention
the wear and tear it imposes on the engine and transmission of
the truck.
Also, the massive load on the truck itself is physically
dangerous. Any instance of shift in load weight can cause
problems for the driver, the truck and the general public,
resulting in huge economic loss and death.
But come to think of this "axle load policy," I am not sure
whether it applies to the maximum weight allowed on the truck
for haulage, in reference to road usage - road strength and the
safety of bridges. Or, whether the policy has direct reference
to the horsepower and load capacity that a particular truck,
with or without trailer, can pull.
Hopefully, a critical step in haulage is not missing in this
"axle policy": that of matching truck horsepower to the size of
trailer or load it pulls.
A cursory glance at traffic on our roads will show that, very
often, this critical step is not observed, especially with
trailer-trucks carrying sea containers from our ports.
Ocean freight containers are meant for carrying heavy goods
safely, in intermodal fashion, from one point to the other. But
the way we transport them on our roads defeats the built-in
safety measures.
For one, containers are heavy. A 40’ container can carry
approximately 65, 000 lbs of weight which requires that the
truck head that pulls the container must have the appropriate
horsepower for the job.
For another, many of these containers are carried in all manner
of unsuitable tractor-trailers, adding to the danger. The most
dangerous I have seen to date was a 40’ container on a flat bed
truck; with the container slightly bigger than the flat bed it
sits on, and without the mechanism for or contraption to keep
the load adequately secured from shifting or spilling unto the
road.
Just recently on the road to Kumasi, on a day when Otumfuor, the
Asantehene, was celebrating his 10th anniversary, with VIPs,
foreign dignitaries and cars pouring in from Accra to Kumasi, a
truck, obviously underpowered and carrying a loaded 40’
container, had an accident coming downhill, resulting in the
shutting down of all traffic coming from either side.
The accident happened at the outskirts of Konongo. Nobody died,
but traffic was held up for hours. Had it not been for the VIPs
in traffic, it probably would have taken longer.
When asked at the site of the accident, the driver of the truck
said he had brake failure coming down hill. Apparently, the
heavy load in the 40’ container had forced the truck to move
faster downhill, according to the laws of physics. His brakes
and the truck’s horsepower, however, could not control the
speed.
Nobody asked the driver if he understood why heavy loads travel
faster downhill. But I am certain he would not have understood
if asked.
Mr. Gadisu and the law enforcement agencies of the country can
see these types of drivers and the trucks they drive on our
roads, abusing daily common sense features of road and
transportation safety.
This time, it took the instance of a number of Ghanaian drivers,
detained at the Burkina Faso border for infraction or
“non-compliance to the “axle load policy” for our transportation
minister to react.
What the Burkina Faso incidence tells us is that at least common
sense prevailed up there. Before that, the detained drivers had
free range of travel - for some 300 miles on the Ghana side.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher
www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, May 9, 2009
Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website,
email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com
. Or don't publish at all.
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