THIRTEEN people are dead and five others are fighting for their lives following a road crash involving a Ford Transit bus and a Toyota Hiace on the Sege-Ada road yesterday.
The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) confirmed that 18 people were involved in the collision.
Personnel from the Sege Fire Station were dispatched to the scene to assist with rescue operations before the injured victims were taken to the Sege Polyclinic for treatment.
For the families of the 13 people who lost their lives, however, there will be no return to normality.
Their loved ones will not come home. The five critically injured victims also face a difficult recovery.
We extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved families and wish the injured a speedy recovery.
But condolences alone cannot be the end of the matter.
The circumstances surrounding yesterday’s crash and the identities of the deceased are yet to be established, and investigations are ongoing.
It is therefore important that no one jumps to conclusions about what caused the collision.
What is clear, however, is that another road crash has claimed a frightening number of lives in a single incident.
That alone should compel the authorities to take a hard look at road safety, particularly on busy highways where commercial and private vehicles share the road.
The investigation into the Sege-Ada crash must be thorough and transparent.
If negligence, dangerous driving, vehicle defects, poor road conditions or any other factor is found to have contributed to the accident, the appropriate action must follow.
Beyond this particular crash, there is a larger question about how seriously Ghana treats road safety.
Road safety cannot be reduced to occasional campaigns, warnings and appeals to drivers to exercise caution.
It requires consistent enforcement of traffic regulations, responsible driving, roadworthy vehicles and effective monitoring of commercial transport operators.
Drivers have a particularly important responsibility. The decision to overtake dangerously, speed, drive while fatigued or ignore basic traffic rules can have consequences that go far beyond the driver.
Passengers, pedestrians and other road users often pay the ultimate price for another person’s recklessness.
Transport operators, too, must put passenger safety ahead of the pressure to make more trips or maximise earnings.
Vehicles must be properly maintained, and drivers must not be pushed to operate for excessively long periods without adequate rest.
The state also has a responsibility to ensure that roads are properly maintained, dangerous sections are identified and addressed, and traffic laws are enforced without fear or favour.
Yesterday’s tragedy should therefore not disappear from public attention once the victims have been buried and the injured discharged from hospital.
Thirteen lives have been lost. Five more people are critically injured.
The nation owes it to the victims and their families to establish exactly what happened and, more importantly, to learn from it.
Road crashes are not inevitable acts of fate. Many are preventable.
The question Ghana must continue to ask is simple: How many more lives must be lost before road safety receives the urgency it deserves?
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