Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Attah has indicated that the current road designs seek to provide better ways of protecting school children and pedestrians by providing underground crossings where possible. He mentioned examples of such underground crossings sited on the Sofo Line and Kentinkrono roads in Kumasi.
Over thirty students of the Islamic Senior High School in Kumasi on Monday, June 13, 2022 were rushed to the hospital after the police allegedly fired tear gas and live bullets to disperse students who were demonstrating over incessant vehicular knockdown after their numerous requests for authorities to build speed ramps on the road were not accorded the needed attention.
It is quite common to encounter several illegal speed ramps on the various roads in Ghana. These illegal speed ramps have no street signs ahead to prompt drivers to slow down and are also not properly constructed to meet standards.
Mr. Amoako-Attah has also admitted that the issue of unauthorised speed ramps is a difficult one to answer though it is an offence to create such speed ramps.
He explained that if the people in a particular town keep experiencing vehicles knocking down their people, it is quite natural that they would create speed ramps to compel over speeding vehicles to slow down.
“I am not endorsing unauthorized speed ramps but some communities are compelled to do this. All of us have a part to resolve these problems. Ideally, everybody prefers to drive on the highway without speed ramps because they are problematic. In other parts of the world, you would travel on the highway for so many kilometers without any speed ramps,” he emphasised
The Roads Minister blames drivers for flouting road signs to over speed even in towns where they are supposed to be driving at 50 km/h.
“You and I know the behavior of drivers, I am referring to all those who sit behind the steering wheel including me. Some of us drivers irresponsibly including both private and commercial drivers even those who are supposed to know better are irresponsible when driving. Even when it is clearly written that drivers should not exceed 50km/hour, you see them not heeding the road signs and over speed.”
According to Amoako-Attah, there are processes to be followed before an official speed ramp could be built on the road. He explained that those who want to have speed ramps should write to the head office of the Ministry of Roads and provide justification for the need to have those speed ramps.
The Minister for Roads says he is against the illegal speed ramps on our roads because they disturb vehicles a lot hence he established a special committee in his ministry to do an inventory and to audit all the speed ramps on our roads. Following the report of the technical committee, so many of the illegal speed ramps have been removed and the necessary ones that were not properly constructed had been rebuilt.
