A total of 17 people lost their lives on Thursday night and Friday dawn in two ghastly accidents at a town near Konongo in the Ashanti region.
The two cars rammed into a broken down articulated truck parked in the middle of the road at Nnoboamu on the Accra-Kumasi highway.
On Thursday evening around 8pm, a Sprinter bus, with registration number AW 5174-13, from Accra heading towards Kumasi with passengers ran into the parked truck. Five people died on the spot: four men and a lady.
At the same place on Friday dawn, another speeding 207 Sprinter bus, with registration number GY 2520-13 , from konongo to Kumasi crashed into the same tipper truck killing 12 passengers on board.
Konongo Divisional Police Commander, Superintendent Ohene Bossman lamented the recklessness on our roads especially involving sprinter bus drivers.
“Yesterday when the thing happened, we put seven cones about 150 meters away from the stationary car and some reflective cones as well so that they will give warnings to the drivers. We also put one on the log so that if you are coming from afar you could see it.
“Unfortunately, this driver also drove through all the cones for about 150 meters hitting the same articulated truck stationary over there,” he told TV3’s William Evans-Nkum
“These sprinter drivers must be told for the last time how to drive on our roads…countless of times we have been going on road checks, we have been talking to these sprinter drivers they drive carelessly, overtake unnecessarily,” Supt. Bossman remarked.
The Ashanti Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Commission Samuel Obeng Asiamah also confirmed to Evans Nkum that the two drivers ignored warning signs.
“Enough advance warning signs were put place to caution the drivers,” he noted.
He described the accidents as unfortunate, remarking that “this is preventable…we need to sit up as stakeholders to prevent some of these accidents on our roads”.
Scores of other injured passengers were sent to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) and the Konongo Government Hospital.
By Isaac Essel | 3news.com | Ghana