PHOTO: Fresh graduates from a leading Driving School, in Monrovia, SOPDE
The School of Professional Driving Education (SOPDE) in the Sinkor suburb of Monrovia has graduated 41 students with basic skills in driving and road safety, as the keynote Speaker calls on Liberian authorities to do more to enforce traffic regulations.
Speaking at the ceremony over the weekend, the Managing Editor of the Public Trust Media Group (PTMG), Mr. Frank Sainworla, Jr. said encouraging driving Education and Enforcement of Traffic Regulations would make Liberia’s Roads Safer.
Mr. Sainworla, who also graduated from SOPDE many years ago, said safety of our roads is primarily the responsibilities of the Liberia National Police (LNP) which has the department of Public Safety with the Traffic division under it and the Ministry of Transport.
But sadly today, there’s lot to be desired when it comes to public education on road safety and drivers education. More and more, people are turning up behind vehicle steering, operating “keh-keh” and motorcycle taxis without even the least education on the rules of the road and traffic safety signs and signals.
“As a trained driver and a product of this great school (SOPDE) for close to 20 years, and anyone who knows about this subject would agree with me that safety on Liberia’s roads is reaching crisis proportions.
They recklessly overtake in the curve, on hills like I saw this week while driving to and from the RIA….They abruptly intrude into the opposite lane at high speed with impunity—motorcycles and vehicles on roads like Tubman Bourlevard.
Joining them are even those who are supposed to be some of our top officials, who are illegal riding around with sirens. They’re violating the country’s vehicle and traffic law. Only five categories of vehicles are entitled to ply the streets with sirens: 1. The President of Liberia 2. The Vice President of Liberia 3. The Police 4. Ambulance 5. The National Fire Service
But today, ever Tom, Dick and Harry is going around with siren, such that some “Pehm-phem” riders have also mounted some sort of siren on their motorbikes.
This is the situation in Liberia, where order is thrown through the window and we just find it almost impossible to implement any law, regulation or policy. Former Police IG, Gregory Coleman promised to enforce the illegal use of siren when he first took over during the Ellen Sirleaf’s regime, but as everything does in this country, the rest was history after barely two weeks,” the Liberian media executive said.
“When I asked traffic police officers in the field then and even some of them now say the same thing: When they try to enforce this, they get phone calls from above.”
Some even don’t know what it means to yield the right of way, the role of the signal lights/reel view mirror and let alone traffic signs and markings on the roads.This is the profile of a huge number of people in the driver’s seat on Liberia’s roads. They are supposed to be drivers. How they’ve secured national drivers/vehicle operators licenses is a whole different story.
Driving around Monrovia and other parts of the country, any trained driver (Driving school-trained operator like me) gets annoyed daily by a sheer abuse of traffic rules by drivers, let alone “Pem-Pem” riders and now the three-wheel “keh keh” riders.
This is why the Liberia National Police (LNP) authorities say reckless and unprofessional driving account for a large number of motor accidents in the country, many of which have led to the loss of many innocent lives.
The 14 years of civil war, when the system collapsed, has made movements on the roads to move from bad to worse.
Liberia is number 66 in the world when it comes to the rate of fatal road traffic accidents, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) data published a few years ago.
The report says road traffic accidents in Liberia numbered 591 or 1.53% of total deaths. “The age affected death rate is 21.52 per 100,000 of the population,” the report adds.
The LNP reported 592 motorcycle accidents in 2014, with 264 deaths throughout Liberia.
Sometime ago, a single road accident on the Buchanan-Cotton Tree highway caused the deaths of 20 people. And just recently, reckless driving is said to have led to the killing of Police officer Opaylo Gonbaye in a “hit and run” accident in Careysburg outside Monrovia. The list goes on….
Many trained drivers in the country believe that the high rate of road accidents here could be drastically reduced by streamlining the growing number of untrained drivers in on the streets, he said.
Journalist Sainworla, a former Station Manager of the Catholic-run Radio Veritas, said, they blame this on the lack of exposure by a vast number of them to drivers’ education coupled with excessive speed. They lack the knowledge that speed is not driving and that good, trained drivers’ speed only under the appropriate conditions.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to improve road safety in Liberia, Mr. Sainworla advanced the following recommendations:
- That the police re-introduce and make drivers education workshops mandatory across the country as well as engage in comprehensive road safety programs in the local media.
- That people wanting to drive a vehicle must be told to go and get trained at accredited driving schools around Liberia.
- That the current practice of issuing drivers licenses to people by the Transport Ministry without being tested must come to an end
- That motorcylists or “phem-phem” riders and those operating the tricycles must see themselves as road users and have an important
responsibility to ensure road safety and that they are a class of its own
- That they operate motorized equipment and they must be educated to know that they are also subjected to the traffic rules/laws
- That the traffic game like all other game has rules and that their failure to adhere to these rules on traffic safety results into horrifying consequences—lost of previous lives, limbs and destruction of lives and properties. This is serious and must also stop
- Police must be strategic in deploying both men and assets in areas and times most needed in order to be on top of traffic control
- Police highway patrols must be robust and not static
- Concrete actions must be taken to remove abandoned trucks and other vehicles from the roads and highways swiftly and we must not wait again for another fatal episode like late Deputy Commerce Minister Allen and Rep.
Adolph Lawrence before we put such issue on the front-burner
- Road traffic signs must be erected in all areas and where they exist, they must be made more visible
- Crosswalks and traffic safety markings on our roads both in Monrovia and other parts have faded in some areas and are none existent in other parts
- Police must punish vehicle operators, keh-keh operators and phem-phem riders who engage in recklessness and go with impunity; Police must stop them from creating another lane on the sidewalk pavement on the Somalia Drive now the Japan Freeway, which is putting lives of pedestrians at great risk
- Driver’s license must not be issued only for the money but those being given driver’s license must be tested in all basic areas, including eyes test. Now, people get license to drive, irrespective of whether they are near sighted, farsighted or suffer night-time vision. This is wrong
CONCLUSION
Road conditions in the capital, Monrovia and around the country are also not helping to make our roads any safer and serve as death traps.
- Opened manholes in the middle of streets and other ditches on the sides of the road, like the one near the Monrovia City Hall, are adding to the traffic hazards as well.
- In addition, the number of defective vehicles plying the streets go by with impunity and some drive without absolutely not even one headlight.
- Major intersections such as Catholic Junction, Freeport have gone without functional traffic lights for years now.
Mr. Sainworla also said many of the scary traffic hazards can be a thing of the past, only if those responsible take the bull by the horn.
And one way to do this is for the police to step up enforcement of traffic safety measures by enforcing the vehicle and traffic laws of Liberia, which are on the books.
The Managing Editor of www.newspublictrust.com website thanked the European Union for recently initiating a campaign to encourage safety on the streets and highways.
But he pointed out that international partners’ efforts alone is not enough. Campaign such as this must be locally owned and sustained by us, Liberians to prevent the rising death toll on our roads.
According to the EU’s mission in Liberia, “road safety strengthens economy.”
As the EU reports, “annually, Liberia loses 3-5% of its GDP due to insufficient road safety and related traffic deaths and injuries.”
“Our Mama Liberia certainly cannot afford to endure such a loss. The time to act is now to make our roads safer, prevent loss of lives and injuries from accidents that can be prevented,” Journalist Sainworla concluded.