A GNA Feature by Albert Futukpor
Tamale, Oct 20, GNA – It is a routine for Alhassan to send his four children to and fro school every week day. He and his children live at Sakasaka but the basic school the children attend is located at Kukuo, both suburbs of Tamale.
To save fuel and time, Alhassan loads all his four children on his small motorbike to send them to school, and bring them back home in the afternoon when school closes. None of them wear helmet and or any protective gear.
He is very careful on the road, meandering through the busy stretch, a distance of about three kilometres, to avoid crashing his family into other motorists.
He told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that “I know that it is not safe for all the five of us to be on this motorbike but there is no alternative for me. If I send them one after the other, we will all be late.”
Mariam lives at Sognayili but her three children attend a basic school at Choggu, both suburbs of Greater Tamale Area. Mariam also, without wearing any protective gear, loads all her three children on her small motorbike to and from school without wearing any protective gear.
She told the GNA that “There’s too much workload on me in the house. By the time I’m done with my chores, it’s almost time for school. If I send them one after the other, they will be late for school.” She added that “Procuring services of a taxi will increase my expenditure.”
” Already, we’re making sacrifices to make ends meet. I know the road is busy and anything can happen but God will protect us.”
Alhassan and Mariam are not the only parents in the Greater Tamale Area in the Northern Region, who ‘overload’ their motorbikes with their children. Many parents in the Greater Tamale Area engage in the practice.
The children are arranged on the motorbikes; some sitting in front and the rest behind their parents from the youngest to the oldest clinging onto one another ostensibly to avoid falling.
In some instances especially after school, some of the children can be seen sleeping as they sit on the motorbikes without any protection. The rider and the pillion riders, most of the time, do not wear any protective gear.
This practice of parents or relatives carrying up to six children on one motorbike to and from school using major streets is very common in the Greater Tamale Area.
This is because whilst public transport is not common in the area, some parents also think hiring the services of taxis will be a burden on their pockets.
The dangers, statistics, the law and enforcement measures
On Friday, January 28, 2022 a woman carried two siblings (believed to be two years old and four years old) on a motorbike running towards Kalpohin Estate from Kalpohin Low Cost in Tamale.
She sped and overtook a tipper truck, and right after that, she hit a speed ramp, which made the motorbike to jump.
The two children, who did not have the capacity to firmly hold onto the motorbike, fell. The tipper truck could not stop instantly, and unfortunately ran over the two children smashing them into pieces.
A week after that crash, another woman, who was carrying her three children on a motorbike to school before going to work, ran into another motorbike, which had stopped abruptly at a T-junction near a fuel station on the Russian Bungalow – TTH Road in Tamale.
She and her three children fell and sustained injuries. They were lucky not to have been run over by approaching motorbikes and vehicles because they saw the scene ahead of time.
Just about a month after that incident, a man carrying four children on a motorbike from school, crashed into a tricycle on the TTH – Town Road, resulting in severe injuries to them. While motorbike crashes are common in the region, statistics on such crashes are not reliable as most of the crashes are not reported.
In most cases, when the injuries are not severe, the victims prefer treatment at home. Statistics obtained from the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) showed that a total of 135 motorbike crashes were reported in the Northern Region in the year 2022 as against a total of 117 motorbike crashes reported in the year 2021.
However, there is no statistics regarding the number of persons killed or injured as a result of those crashes because such data are mixed with those involving vehicles as well. Meanwhile, the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), which attends to most of the severe cases of road crashes, reported that severe head injuries sustained, largely due to motorbike crashes, had been among the top three leading causes of deaths at the hospital since 2018.
Dr Adam Atiku, the then Director of Medical Affairs at TTH, presenting the situation during the hospital’s annual performance review meeting in Tamale in 2022, said 73 patients, who arrived at the emergency unit of the hospital in 2021, died from severe head injuries whilst 16 others, who were on admission during the same period, also died from severe head injuries.
He added that among the top five causes of admissions at the hospital were severe head injuries and fractures sustained through motorbike crashes with some of the victims being children.
Mr Abduai Bawa Ghamsah, Northern Regional Director of National Road Safety Authority (NSRA), in an interview with the GNA on the practice of people carrying up to six children on one motorbike in Tamale, said the issue of overloading of motorbikes in the Tamale Metropolis was a worrying situation for the NRSA.
Mr Ghamsah said “Sometime ago, we tried to stop the practice but people were giving flimsy excuses and explanations as to why they engaged in it.”
He recounted a question asked him by a man, who carried four children on his motorbike saying ” Chief, if you have two wives, and all the two wives have two children each, and you get up in the morning and you have only one motorbike and you want to take them to school, which of them will you take first and which one will you take second, and what will be the consequences when you come back? “
Your wives will start to fight with you that you like this woman more than me. That is why you carry her children first. That is why I carry all the four of them at a go.”
He said the NRSA tried to educate people on how to use their motorbikes including telling them not to overload and not to disregard road traffic regulations, adding, enforcement of the law was the best way to addressing the situation but the interference in the work of law enforcement agencies by people in influential positions posed a great challenge.
He said despite the challenge “We will not relent in our efforts to ensure that the right things are done to reduce the incidences of crashes, injuries and deaths.”
Chief Superintendent Mr Alexander Obeng, Director of Education, Research and Training at the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service, in an interview with the GNA in Tamale, said the practice was against the Road Traffic Regulations LI 2180, which permitted a motorbike to carry only a rider and a pillion rider.
Chief Superintendent Mr Obeng said riders, who violated the law, were being arrested and enforcement of the law would be intensified to stop the practice.
How others are addressing the situation
Good Shepherd Schools Complex and Etoile Royale Educational Centre are some of the private schools in Tamale that ran bus services conveying their pupils and students from designated pick up points to and from school.
Authorities of these schools told the GNA that they introduced the bus services to support parents, who were so busy that they could not cope with the routine of bringing their children to school in the morning, and coming for them in the afternoon after school closes.
They said it was also to prioritise the safety of their pupils and students by stopping the practice where some parents used their motorbikes like buses carrying several children to and fro school.
They said no crashes were recorded when the bus services were being run but had recently suspended the bus services due to rising cost of operations and the refusal by some parents to pay more.
Could public transport be a solution?
In the mornings and afternoons, there is increased number of motorbikes on the major streets of the Greater Tamale Area with most of them having up to six school children.
Crashes are common as some suddenly cross others because of the increased numbers coupled with speeding.
The crashes are mostly devastating as there is the likelihood of the children losing their lives and If they sustain injuries, depending on the severity of the injuries, the impact can be long-lasting.
This can be devastating not only on the lives of the immediate families but also society and the country as a whole as such children may grow up to become burden on them depending on the severity of the injuries they suffer.
The need for a solution to using one motorbike to convey up to six children through busy stretches of the Greater Tamale Area must be a concern for all.
Late last year, the government deployed some buses under the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system to the Greater Tamale Area to operate a public transport system in the area.
These buses ply specific routes and charge low fares. The government has also supplied buses to all the second cycle schools in the Tamale Greater Area.
Most of the time, all those buses remain parked at the schools. Taking a cue from what Good Shepherd Schools Complex, and Etoile Royale Educational Centre had done, the government must redeploy all the buses at SHSs in addition to the BRT buses to specific routes in the Greater Tamale Area especially the busy ones to convey schoolchildren to and from school.
This could ensure sanity on the busy streets of the area and ensure safety of the school children and the practice of parents using motorbikes to carry up to six children as pillion riders to and from school in the area will reduce if not stopped.
The way forward
Road crashes lead to injuries and deaths. Depending on the severity of the injuries, the victim(s) may be incapacitated for life.
If they result in death(s), no matter who is involved, the entire society loses. From the interviews, all the people, who use motorbikes as ‘buses’ to carry up to six children to and from school in the Greater Tamale Area, know that it is a dangerous practice, which can end their lives.
If the law is enforced, all the parents will be arrested and their children may not go to school on time because of lack of alternative means of transport and or inability to hire the services of taxis, which are also in short supply in the area.
Therefore, any provable solution to this practice of overloading motorbikes with school children in the area must be embraced by all.
It will be in the best interest of society for the government to implement the measure outlined above to help reduce, and or stop crashes, injuries and deaths associated with using motorbikes as buses in the Greater Tamale Area.
GNA