By Samuel Hinneh
The construction of highways worldwide are done to facilitate quick means of moving vehicles to aid the transportation of mankind and goods, however, the safety of people on these highways have become ?a great concern for many experts of road safety and pedestrians.
The debate has reached international dimension given the huge number of pedestrians who sustain high degree of injuries and die as a result of usage of highways either crossing from end to the other or driving.
Statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that more than 1.2 million people who use roads die globally every year, and as many as 50 million people sustain injuries. In Ghana, however, data from the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) indicates that the total number of persons killed through road crash in 2011 is 2,330, representing 32% increase in the 2010 figure of 1,760.
The Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service indicate that from February 15 to August 31, this year, 253 crashes involving 447 vehicles occurred on the George Bush Highway. The highway, which is new, is a 14 kilometre road passing most of the urban centres in Accra such as Mallam, Akweteman, Lapaz and Mallam. With the purpose? to ensure goods or horticultural products coming from the southern horticultural zone in the central and eastern regions ?of Ghana can have easy access to the sea and the airport, it has also become a haven for killing people.
Five people have also lost their lives during the months of July to August 2012, on the yet-to-be-fully-completed Achimota-Ofankor Highway according to the Resident Engineer working on the project. The five were knocked down by vehicles while attempting to scale the short retaining walls to cross from one section of the road to the other side.
It is clear that the design decision did not take into account all space users of the highway, particular the pedestrians, who are vulnerable to such fast moving vehicles on the highway.
In an interview with Prof Hank Weiss, Director, Injury Prevention Research Unit at the University of Otago, New Zealand, during the Safety 2012 World Conference on the issue, he said there is the need for engineers, designers among others in road construction to build roads that are community friendly instead of only building roads for only vehicles.
Even though the highway has made some provisions for footbridges, Ghanaians have consistently complained about the long distance between the footbridges hence the refusal to use them.? The prescribed measure Ghanaians have adopted to cross is using the median in the face of fast moving vehicles speeding.
According to the engineers, the locations of the footbridges were done following international practices. However, there is no evidenced based of international standards of the locations of the footbridges from the injury prevention perspectives.
Prof Weiss says in cases where people have to get across, the design decision should have elevated the highway so people can go beneath it, thereby avoiding inconveniencing the people.
?This is putting yourself as a designer into the head of the people you want to guide through the dangerous areas safely.? Trying to balance all the space areas, not just for road users but the people who live there??.
Most of the highways globally and Ghana without an exception, are mostly found in urban areas where the population of people is high. With the United Nations projections of population to increase to 9.1 billion by 2050, mostly found in urban areas, then the construction of highways need to have in place good safety measures for pedestrians.
?The road designers of course think about minimising cost and minimising expenditure and making it fast for cars but that is an approach we need to get away from??, Prof Weiss said.
He says all nations whether emerging economies or developed economies have to look at the long terms views of the structures they are building now, and how cost effective the structures will be for instance thirty years from now.
?Even if they can afford to build them now, are there going to be many users, instead what most of them are doing is assuming what happened in the past is going to continue in the future, all indications are otherwise. ?Many of the developed countries road users are decreasing for the first time, the costs are beginning to out-way the benefits and so getting back to that particular highway??.
James Damsere Derry (a Ghanaian PhD Student), at the Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety-Queensland (CARRS-Q) in Australia says much as it is worth noting to acknowledge drivers violating traffic rules like over speeding and not yielding for pedestrians at crosswalks, pedestrians also have a role to play in their own safety.
He said sometimes spacing of these facilities depends on the prevailing land use especially in residential areas where there is shorter spacing than other use.
?I think to walk for about 100 meters and cross safely using footbridges is better than to cross anywhere and get injured or killed.
?Like any road furniture, the cost of building these facilities are very high and they cannot be replicated every 30 metres or so to meet pedestrians demand.
?Once the road is divided in space, certain mental maps are formed by drivers and they do not expect pedestrians on such facilities hence pedestrians crossing any how around the facility may be at increased risk??, he says.
