Owusuwa was a friend of my wife and they worked together as nurses in
one of England’s foremost hospitals. Early in 2012, Owusuwa returned to
Ghana on leave but she did not return. She was killed in a traffic
accident. My wife attended a memorial service arranged by Owusuwa’s
relatives and friends in Manchester. This tragic event reminded me that
in 1996 I conducted a brief study of life on the road in Ghana, taking
many photographs and collecting official data which I was horrified to
find showed that the country had some of the most dangerous roads in the
world.
The principal source of reliable data on Ghana’s roads and road traffic is the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), situated on the Accra road just outside of Kumasi, near the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). According to BRRI, at the time of my study, reliable data was available for the years up to 1991. It was reported that in the 1960s the annual number of road fatalities averaged about 640. In the 1970s the comparable figure was 875 and during the four years from 1988 to 1991, on average, 915 people died on Ghana’s roads each year.
The BRRI records showed that the number of fatalities per 10,000 vehicles fell from over 140 in 1965 to about 95 in 1990. These national averages, however, concealed wide variations between the regions. Some rural regions, like Eastern and Volta, exceeded 200 while Greater Accra Region fell below 30. It would appear that the heavy traffic congestion on Accra’s narrow streets contrived to slow the traffic and provide the capital city with the nation’s safest roads. In the same way, the data for the second safest region, Ashanti, might be attributed to congestion in the second city, Kumasi.
The BRRI records show that over the period of 30 years under review some progress had been made in making Ghana’s roads safer. However, there was still a long way to go to reach the levels of the advanced countries. For example, in the United Kingdom in 1990, there were 5,217 people killed on roads that supported a population of about 25 million vehicles, a fatality rate per 10,000 vehicles of 2.1, and to show what further progress is possible, by 2009 annual fatalities on roads in the UK had fallen to below 0.4 per 10,000 vehicles.
There were many reasons why Ghana’s roads were so unsafe. The first was the poor condition of the roads themselves, with broken surfaces and numerous potholes. Road maintenance was rendered very difficult because new and repaired surfaces were rapidly destroyed by the harsh climate and the uncontrolled weight of the heaviest goods vehicles. Most vehicles were poorly maintained and most would probably have failed the annual safety inspections conducted in advanced countries. Added to all this, most vehicles travelled overloaded, and this was true of the rush hour trotros as well as the largest timber trucks.
Time moves on and one expects progress to continue. Since leaving Ghana in 1997 I have been able to make several return visits, the latest in 2009, and I noticed some impressive new roads in Accra and Kumasi. It was also apparent that the vehicle population had increased fivefold, from about 160,000 in 1991 to about 800,000 in 2009. In 2010, the latest figures available, 1,431 people are reported to have died on the roads of Ghana, suggesting that the index per 10,000 vehicles has fallen below 20. Relative to the vehicle population, road safety in Ghana has improved, but not fast enough to prevent a rise in total annual fatalities or to safeguard the lives of people like Owusuwa.
The principal source of reliable data on Ghana’s roads and road traffic is the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), situated on the Accra road just outside of Kumasi, near the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). According to BRRI, at the time of my study, reliable data was available for the years up to 1991. It was reported that in the 1960s the annual number of road fatalities averaged about 640. In the 1970s the comparable figure was 875 and during the four years from 1988 to 1991, on average, 915 people died on Ghana’s roads each year.
The BRRI records showed that the number of fatalities per 10,000 vehicles fell from over 140 in 1965 to about 95 in 1990. These national averages, however, concealed wide variations between the regions. Some rural regions, like Eastern and Volta, exceeded 200 while Greater Accra Region fell below 30. It would appear that the heavy traffic congestion on Accra’s narrow streets contrived to slow the traffic and provide the capital city with the nation’s safest roads. In the same way, the data for the second safest region, Ashanti, might be attributed to congestion in the second city, Kumasi.
The BRRI records show that over the period of 30 years under review some progress had been made in making Ghana’s roads safer. However, there was still a long way to go to reach the levels of the advanced countries. For example, in the United Kingdom in 1990, there were 5,217 people killed on roads that supported a population of about 25 million vehicles, a fatality rate per 10,000 vehicles of 2.1, and to show what further progress is possible, by 2009 annual fatalities on roads in the UK had fallen to below 0.4 per 10,000 vehicles.
There were many reasons why Ghana’s roads were so unsafe. The first was the poor condition of the roads themselves, with broken surfaces and numerous potholes. Road maintenance was rendered very difficult because new and repaired surfaces were rapidly destroyed by the harsh climate and the uncontrolled weight of the heaviest goods vehicles. Most vehicles were poorly maintained and most would probably have failed the annual safety inspections conducted in advanced countries. Added to all this, most vehicles travelled overloaded, and this was true of the rush hour trotros as well as the largest timber trucks.
Time moves on and one expects progress to continue. Since leaving Ghana in 1997 I have been able to make several return visits, the latest in 2009, and I noticed some impressive new roads in Accra and Kumasi. It was also apparent that the vehicle population had increased fivefold, from about 160,000 in 1991 to about 800,000 in 2009. In 2010, the latest figures available, 1,431 people are reported to have died on the roads of Ghana, suggesting that the index per 10,000 vehicles has fallen below 20. Relative to the vehicle population, road safety in Ghana has improved, but not fast enough to prevent a rise in total annual fatalities or to safeguard the lives of people like Owusuwa.
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