Motorway is not for car racing

Tema, Oct. 25, - The Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service has reminded drivers that the Accra- Tema Motorway is not a place for car racing.

Chief Superintendent Joseph Owusu-Bempah, Tema Regional MMTD Commander said instead of being cautious on the motorway by driving defensively, drivers rather see the road as a place to race each other leading to numerous preventable accidents.

Chief Superintendent Owusu-Bempah speaking to the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a transport taskforce inauguration in Tema, he urged drivers to value human lives and reflect over consequences of driving carelessly on the road.

“The motorway is not a place for car racing, such behaviour is causing a lot of accidents especially when it rains, ”he indicated.

He noted that drivers must consider the motorway as an ordinary road which could be crossed by pedestrians at any time due to the springing up of settlements and human activities along the road.

He added that residents of such settlements have created a number of unauthorized detours through which they join the motorway any time they wanted saying when such openings were blocked, they resurface.

The MTTD Commander further observed that activities of tricycles loaded with rubbish popularly known as ‘borla taxis’ plying the motorway posed a lot of danger to other drivers as they drove haphazardly in and out of lanes with some dumping refuse on the road.

He indicated that his outfit had arrested a number of them but always had a challenge of impounding the tricycles due to stench emanating from the garbage they carry.

Chief Superintendent Owusu-Bempah also bemoaned the darkness on the motorway at night as that also caused accidents as well as aided criminal activities adding that armed robbers hid in the dark and attacked passengers with some raping women whose vehicles had broken down on the stretch.

He appealed to host district assemblies to provide street lights on the motorway, suggesting the use of solar energy to even keep the lights on during power outages and also prevent the theft of the cables and bulbs.

GNA