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Tell me
about death on our roads
E.
Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
May 9,
2009
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 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?
No scales
at the ports all this time, so the police have been using their
judgment by eyeballing trucks on the roads, right? No humor
intended here.
But this
explains the countless sighting of trucks, off balance with
heavy freight, moaning and groaning its way on our roads.
Overloaded trucks that go very slow uphill and faster downhill.
And in the event of brake failure, end up causing tragic
accidents.
The sight
and sound of these trucks laboring on our roads should invite
common-sense to intervene.
Common-sense is a critical point, a first line of defense.
It should be the first to be applied in all safety
measures, including our roads.
But when left to the greed of owners and truck operators,
it will be the first to be jettisoned.
Some
truck owners and operators think that by overloading their
vehicles, they increase their chance for profit per trip.
On the
contrary, overloading is a costly truck operational strategy. 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.
The
massive load on the truck itself is physically dangerous. At any
instance, the load can shift in the middle of a journey and this
can cause problems for the driver, the truck and the general
public.
In the
end, overloading the truck to make a quick buck per trip may
result in huge economic loss in goods carried and, possibly,
death.
But come
to think of this "axle load policy," I am not sure what exactly
it is directed at.
Must
this requirement apply to the maximum weight allowed on the
truck per se, whether it has the horsepower to haul the load or
not, or it has reference to road strength and the safety of
bridges on the journey?
Hopefully, a critical step in haulage is not missing in this
"axle policy": that of matching truck horsepower to the size of
trailer, the load it carries and the condition of the roadway to
its final destination.
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, the truck bed that carries the container must be
properly equiped with hook and fasterners to secure the
container safely to the base.
But
often, many of these containers are carried in all manner of
unsuitable tractor-trailers, thereby adding to the risk and
danger on the roadway.
The most
dangerous I have seen to date was a 40’ container carried on a
flatbed truck; with the container slightly bigger than the base
it sits on, and without the mechanism, or contraption to keep
the load adequately secured from shifting or spilling on to the
roadway.
It happened just
recently on the road to Kumasi, on a day when
the 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 of the
highway.
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, the stoppage would have probably 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 of the 40’ container had pushed the
truck to faster speed on the downhill run.
The
truck’s brakes and its engine horsepower did not match the load.
And when it came to the critical time to stop the truck,
the driver couldn’t.
The truck head went into a ditch and the container fell on its
side on the road.
Nobody
asked the driver if he understood why heavy loads push truck to 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 issues.
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” of that country for
our transportation minister to react.
Many
thanks to Burkina Faso.
At least common-sense prevailed up at their border.
Before that border, 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
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