Editorial: Ensuring Safety On Our Roads: ‘Kufuor Gallons’ Are Not Reflectors – Stop It

According to the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) report, a total of 3,674 road traffic crashes had already been reported between January and March, 2025. These crashes, the NRSA revealed, involved 6,143 vehicles of all categories and 5,039 casualties (752 fatalities/deaths and 4,287 injuries).

Somewhere last year, the Daily Graphic also reported that 2,276 persons were killed in 14,135 reported road crashes involving 23,998 vehicles in 2023.Within the same period, 15,409 persons suffered varying degrees of injury from the crashes, while 2,559 pedestrians were also knocked down.

The above frightening statistics clearly show that the carnage on our roads are getting worse and this is what worries The Chronicle. Experts will admit that majority of these road crashes come as a result of head-on collisions, wrong overtaking and others. This means that the problem can be solved if the country is able to dualise its major roads to ensure smooth overtake of vehicles.

Unfortunately, apart from the Accra-Tema Motorway, all the major roads in Ghana have not been dualised. It is, therefore, very difficult for fast moving cars to overtake trucks carrying heavy loads on busy roads like Accra-Kumasi, Accra-Takoradi and Accra-Aflao. Impatient drivers, who feel tired of following one truck for a very long time, attempt to sometimes overtake ten cars at a stretch.

The results of these actions are the deadly road crashes the country has been witnessing. Some of the drivers do not care a hoot that they are carrying human beings who are bread winners of their respective families – the interest is to reach their destinations on time.

Apart from our roads being single lanes, which in our view, is contributing to road crashes, another worrying trend is the way heavy duty vehicles park on the highways without appropriate warning triangles. In the past, drivers of these broken down vehicles would cut the branches of trees and place them on the road to warn drivers of the danger ahead, instead of using the prescribed warning triangle from the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA).

In recent times, the drivers have adopted a new method of placing jerry cans, popularly known as ‘Kufuor gallons’ behind the broken down vehicle, instead of again using warning triangle. The latter is the best way to warn incoming vehicles, especially in the night, because it is a reflector as well. Why these drivers prefer using ‘Kufuor gallons’ instead of the warning triangle, has not been properly explained.

Though some of the drivers claim thieves steal the warning triangles, it is not enough justification to discard its usage and adopt primitive methods of using jerry cans or tree branches that are contributing to the carnage on our roads. Just last week, The Chronicle countered a number of vehicles that had broken down on the Accra-Suhum stretch of the Kumasi highway, which were all using jerry cans or branches instead of reflectors.

To stop the carnage and ensure sanity on our highways, The Chronicle suggests to the Ghana Police Service to arrest any driver that uses ‘Kufuor Gallons’ as a reflector, rather than the legally prescribed one – warning triangle. The strategy the drivers have adopted should certainly not go unchecked if we are to bring down cases of road crashes and the associated fatalities.

But whilst we implore the police to crack the whip on these erring drivers, the government should also not forget the fact that she has a crucial role to play in the whole caboodle. As we earlier indicated, if we accept the fact that head-on collisions are major factors contributing to road crashes, then the government must ensure that all the major roads have been dualised.

It is a shame that after gaining independence from the British colonial rule over sixty years ago, we have still not been able to dualise the Accra-Kumasi highway, which is the busiest in the country. All governments we have had since 1992 promised to dualise this particular road, but it is still a single lane.

Even the Accra-Tema Motorway, which Dr. Kwame Nkrumah bequeathed to the nation is currently in a terrible state. Road crashes are not fought with rhetorics – it must be backed by concrete action, which is dualising the roads. We hope President Mahama and his government are listening to us.

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