HIGHWAYS OF DEATH AND BROKEN DOWN TRUCKS

THE METRO MASS BUS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
Picture Courtesy: www. dailyguideghana.com


Heart wrenching,
Ghastly
Grisly
Horrific
Gruesome
Hair-raising,
A scene of utter and complete chaos
A Metro Mass bus made its final run.


Run straight into a brokendown truck,
Sitting pretty on the shoulder of the highway,
Well, at least the driver of the distressed truck said
He was parked on the shoulder,
Said he placed a warning triangle for good measure,
50 yards from the scene of the accident,
Was the bus driver asleep at the wheel?
Was the warning triangle really placed at 50 yards?
Is 50 yards an acceptable distance for warning triangles on highways?
I do not have answers to those questions,
But this much I do know,
The carnage,
Unimaginable,
Arms
Legs
And other appendages pouring down
Like droplets of rain
In a huge ball of metal and tempered glass.


Is anybody watching at all?
Brokendown trucks sit smack in the middle of our roads,
On the shoulders of highways,
And in blind spots
Vacationing in those locations for days and months,
As though they own those very spots.
Warning triangles?
Those things are not a remedy,
They only tell of imminent danger,
They are not preventive,
Merely informative.
Does anyone know the acceptable distance for
The placement of warning triangles on highways?
Absolute silence,
No need to feel embarrassed,
I haven’t slightest idea either,
Probably 50 yards maybe,
I’ll go ask the truck driver,
Bet he knows the answer.


When did roadways and road shoulders
Become mechanic workshops and parking spaces anyway?
I seem to have lost that page in my road user manual,
Brokendown vehicles under repair
Smack in the middle of our highways,
Do we find this acceptable?
I do agree,
Drivers aren’t infallible,
They are human after all,
But aren’t we increasing their margins of error
By littering highways with these brokendown vehicles?


Warning triangles are an integral part of road safety
But is it not way past time we put in place other measures too?
Triangles are only informative,
They are not solutions.
Do all those warning triangles being sold in the streets
Function properly anyway? Especially at night?
I do not seek to vilify these triangles,
I merely broach a possibility,
I’m neither judge nor jury,
Just a concerned and troubled road user
Ever bothered check who manufactured your triangle?
Are you confident it functions properly?
Are tow trucks and 24 hour tow services still
Figments of our imaginations?
Does anyone know the market price of a tow truck?
That’s easy to find out, just google it,
Kindly try finding out the market price of a human life,
I dare you google it,
You can never put a price tag on a human life lost,
The ripple effects of such occurrences are beyond mathematics.


23 lives lost in dawn carnage,
I’ll dare you,
Take a drive from Accra to Kumasi at pitch dark,
Please do not drive at 5kmph
But do not over speed either,
Chances are,
You just might end up in a mangled mass
Of metal, airbags and seatbelts,
Thanks to a brokendown vehicle.
Such long journeys by road these days are like one
Way flights without a return in mind,
You just might not come back again,
The sword of Damocles hangs precariously over your head.


In Ghana, we’re good at what we do,
We begin lay pipelines and leave them halfway to
Their intended destinations declaring them complete,
Our usual excuse is,
At least that’s better than nothing.
How ignorant,
Short-sighted,
We find comfort in settling,
Saying; we’ve got it better than others anyway.
We lost 23 lives on a bus at 4 am last Monday,
A great deal more have been lost over the years,
Yet we seem more than content with our knee-jerk reactions,
Bigwigs visit scenes of accidents,
Granting interviews and making declarations as though they were
Freedom fighters embroiled in a struggle for independence,
Just another opportunity to make the prime-time news.
Delayed reactions have become our mainstay,
It seems you stand a greater chance of losing your life in an
Accident on a Ghanaian highway nowadays
Than on the streets of Baghdad and Kabul combined.
Pretty impressive odds, don’t you think?
So the next time you embark on a long journey on a Ghanaian highway,
I will not think you foolhardy if you purchased a bus pass and a casket too,
For you ride on the highways of death and brokendown vehicles.