Brig. Gen. Dan Frimpong (Rtd)
Opinion
6 minutes read
On Tuesday, April 28, 2026, the University of Cape Coast (UCC) community, as well as many Ghanaians, were thrown into a state of mourning by the tragic death of UCC lecturer, Dr Kwabena Agyemang, and his Teaching Assistant, Peter Asmah, in a road-traffic accident (RTA) in Cape Coast.
The next day, on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, seven people died when a commercial vehicle they were travelling in skidded off the steep Kwahu Mountains into the ravine.
Beginning from 2017, in addition to the many articles others have written, I have written on RTAs needlessly claiming Ghanaian lives, in the following articles:
March 201: Motorway “Kamikaze driving?” February 2020: Vulcanizers and RTAs7; September 2023: Accra Tema-Motorway” An open trap? May 2025: Bad Roads, Reckless driving and RTAs; August 2025: Accra-Kumasi Highway “Kamikaze driving? December 2025: RTA “epidemic?”
Therefore, perhaps writing again on RTAs might sound like the idiom, “playing a broken record!” But, it is absolutely necessary to remind policy-makers/people in authority, as well as drivers, about this canker, which in 2025, killed 2,949 Ghanaians in 14,743 crashes.
Seeing the way drivers speed recklessly in town, I have no doubt what they do on highways.
Indeed, I experienced it in a recent trip to Cape Coast.
Below are excerpts from my 2017 article “Motorway kamikaze driving?
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Accra-Tema Motorway
In a recent publication, Ghana’s death toll of over 1,700 casualties in the first nine months of 2016 was adjudged one of the highest in the world.
As a little boy living in Michel Camp with my parents in the early 1960s, I had the pleasure and privilege of being one of the early users of the newly constructed Accra-Tema Motorway, taking rides with my parents anytime they came to Accra.
The 19-kilometre solid concrete road was modelled on the German autobahn and was intended by President Osagyefo Dr Kwame to be the first of many such motorways to link major cities in Ghana.
It was simply an amazing construction, and I loved being driven on it.
There were telephone booths at regular intervals for emergencies and solid ground reflectors for night driving.
Today, however, in my retirement, even though it is the fastest way of getting to Accra from my home, I avoid the motorway like the plague.
Why? It has become a death-trap with accidents occurring frequently.
People drive on it at top speeds like Jehu, overtaking every vehicle in sight, while crisscrossing and zigzagging to avoid potholes! Indeed, some drive like Japanese pilots on a Kamikaze mission!
Indiscipline
Many years ago, I took my driving test in a car with the Manual or Stick shift gears.
Before then, my driving instructor from the Automobile Association (AA) told me/us that,” if you do not drive in the correct gears, the vehicle will drive you by stalling on you and stopping.” I was also taught Defensive Driving and Road Courtesy.
Today, modern technology has replaced manual gear vehicles with automatic transmissions. This has reduced driving to speeding hard and then jamming on the brakes for an instant stop!
Unfortunately, driving automatic vehicles demands very little thinking! So drivers can afford to drive with one hand while making a mobile phone call with the other.
Though I do not have statistics to support this, the thinking is that some accidents have been caused with loss of lives because the drivers were distracted while driving and phoning.
Recently, a speeding car from a minor road to an intersection made me feel the driver probably had brake failure. I therefore honked and stopped.
The young woman driver angrily pointed at her head with the insulting gesture to me that I did not have any sense! I still do not know what I did wrong to deserve that. She looked young enough to be my daughter. I sympathised with her as a product of bad parenting!
Unfortunately, drivers trading insults has become routine.
A common feature on our roads these days is a phenomenon I call “in-situ-repairs.”
When a vehicle breaks down in the middle of the road, it is fixed there with total disregard for the resulting traffic jam, whereas moving it a few metres off the road would prevent any traffic build-up.
At night, parked/broken-down vehicles in darkness become death-traps.
Way out
Elsewhere, driving offences are punishable by an increase in insurance premium for the offender.
Where it persists, the offending driver has his driving license revoked.
Indeed, at the time of writing on Tuesday, December 13, 2017, BBC announced the imposition of an eighty-thousand-dollar fine on Ivorian football star Yahaya Toure for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Additionally, he was banned from driving for eighteen months.
Again, very fast buses meant for ambulances in advanced countries, on decommissioning, are imported into Ghana and metal seats are welded in them to play the role of passenger vehicles! In the event of an accident, the welded metals cause the deaths of innocent passengers.
DVLA, why do you register decommissioned ambulances brought to Ghana as passenger vehicles? Please ban them to save lives.
Recklessly driving unroadworthy cars by drivers aside, our roads themselves are not car worthy! If the Police checked reckless drivers, ensured that vehicles are roadworthy, and prosecuted errant drivers, casualties from road traffic accidents would reduce.
This is on the assumption that the government will provide good and safe roads.
Conclusion
A combination of reckless driving, poorly maintained vehicles and bad roads makes driving very unsafe in Ghana. Unfortunately, the Police do not appear to enforce breaches of driving regulations by arraigning offenders before the courts.
Mr IGP, why are vehicles with DP and DV plates speeding about so confidently?
It is only when the Police enforce road traffic laws rigorously that some Ghanaians will be forced to drive with common sense, and thus reduce the carnage on our roads.
Discussion
Carnage from RTAs appears to have become a daily phenomenon now, with needless loss of lives.
The loss of the UCC lecturer and his young TA, Asmah, is an unfortunate reminder to the various agencies for road safety to up their game.
Apart from the 2,949 deaths in 2025, an even greater number were injured, with some maimed for life.
Like galamsey, RTAs do not appear to be given the desired seriousness they deserve.
Enforcement by applying the appropriate sanctions mentioned above, like hefty fines and, in some cases, a total ban for life, is absolutely necessary.
Irresponsibility, which leads to death, must not be tolerated.
National Road Safety Authority, DVLA, Ghana Police and associated agencies, arise and save Ghanaian lives! Above all, drivers must drive with common sense and not do the dangerous overtaking, one of which ended the lives of UCC lecturer Dr Agyemang and his Teaching Assistant, Peter Asmah, so tragically.
Leadership, lead by example/integrity/humility! Fellow Ghanaians, wake up!
The writer is a former CEO, African Peace Support Trainers Association Nairobi, Kenya; Council Chairman, Family Health University, Teshie, Accra.
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Source:
www.graphic.com.gh