Here's the situation I found myself in on the way back from Accra to Kumasi recently. It's pitch black outside. I'm in a 22 seater ramshackle van (nominally a Mercedes but in reality about 100 hundred machines have been tor n asunder and gelled together to make it semi road worthy). A truck is in our way. The stretch of road is quite good, but as always when night has descended, one can never tell what may appear out of the blue. Fog has descended in patches. But our driver nevertheless decides to give it a go, overtaking the truck, and getting home 1 minute earlier than if he waited for a safer opportunity. He moves into the oncoming hard shoulder to manouevre outside the truck. Then, all of a sudden a loud BANG. All the passengers scream.
I'm near the front of the vehicle and think I saw what appeared to be a bicycle light before the light disappeared alongside the left-wing mirror. The driver passes out the truck, and to my surprise keeps driving, not seeming to give a damn that he probably just hit somebody.
I shout at him, 'Stop driving, you just hit a cyclist.' The woman in the front seat ahead of me turns her head and agrees. But he just keeps driving. Nobody says anything. So I shout again 'Pull over, you may have killed an old man for all we know'. Silence. He slows down from 80kms per hour to about 40 kms p/h and moves into the hard shoulder to allow the truck he had just passed out to overtake us. About 3 of the passengers say something within 10 seconds, at last breaking their silence. But immediately after they talk, the driver, obviously reassured by his fellow passengers, moves back onto the main road and speeds on. I turn to the young, well dressed woman beside me, and offer my phone for her to ring emergency services. She turns her head the opposite direction. So I send an sms to Dorota to ring emergency services (at this stage I am a bit reluctant to do it given the passive nature of my fellow passengers and the fact that the driver and his mate (helper) may feel threatened by such a call).
I've noticed that we just passed the village of Yawkwei, about 100kms from Kumasi. After repeated attempts to call the police or ambulance to no avail, I arrive in Kumasi. I have our vehicle registration number in addition to the place where the accident occurred and the registration number of the truck we passed out, just in case the driver of that vehicle has witnessed something also. I call over a police officer and tell him what I saw. He calls a colleague and within 2 minutes there are 2 police officers in uniform and 2 plainclothes officers questioning the driver, his mate the more senior policeman turns to me and says „Please forgive him”.
At this stage I know it's a useless effort on my behalf. These cops are probably using the opportunity to extort money from the driver not to bring the case further. I travel back home as its late. Consulting fellow Ghanaian workers the following day, I am advised to drop the situation, that my concern will come to nothing. But as someone who has probably witnessed an accident where a cyclist was hurt, that just ain't something to leave one's head over night. So I make a 2nd attempt at the cops. I go to the main police station and am directed to the control centre. At last I meet two cops who take the issue seriously and call the local police stations and hospital admissions to give them feedback if anybody reported an accident in the area. I have had no contact from the cops, so either the cyclist survived unscathed, or else they just dropped the enquiries and the driver of vehicle GS 4900 Z continues to drive dangerously on the Accra-Kumasi road.
And what about the passengers silence. Well, it appears that the 3 who broke their silence may have encouraged the driver to keep going just in case it was a trick to stop him by robbers. I had just read of thieves who shot out the tyres of a bus in the Upper East region of Ghana, subsequently robbing all on board. But this did not appear such an attempt. Unless a thieving cyclist was willing to get killed in the process, that is.
Silence. It's amazing what fear can do to the most normal human being. We're all capable of keeping our mouths shut when we see something that we deem plain wrong, myself included. Having over 20 people willing to keep their mouths shut was something that I hadn't expected witnessing though.
3 comments:
My dear friend. I am absolutely shocked that you were surprised about the reactions of those around you, and the FACT that nobody gave a damn about the cyclist that got hit and no doubt lay dying at the side of the road.
I have been in Ghana for 12 years. Watched a woman bleed to death on a guerney (sp?), right inside the hospital, just because she didn't have the money for treatment. The nurses chewed plantain chips nonchalantly.
In Ghana where people are poor and life is cheap, that accident/incident was nothing. I can bet you that you were THE ONLY one in that tro tro that lost any sleep or bothered to ask, inquire, follow up. They were worried about feeding their families the next day. Period.
Corruption is rampant as you know and the police no doubt just used your report to get some money out of the driver.
And your comment about calling emergency services?! Are you serious? There is no such thing. Literally and figuratively.
An employee of West Africa Rescue, a private emergency services company doing well in Ghana serving expats and companies told me recently that there was a big accident involving 2 trotros outside Accra with over 60 deaths. They brought the injured to Korle Bu and wanted to follow up but were told that they could go. They knew the people would not be saved. They were right.
What were you doing on the road from Accra to Kumasi AT NIGHT in Ghana?!! In a tro tro?! That road has the 6th highest number of fatal accidents ON EARTH.
My friend, being 'down' with the local scene is one thing but please vlaue your life. Those drivers do not and they proved that on that very night.
Interesting comment and many aspects of it to respond to. Yes, no one can take it from you that you have lived here for 12 years. But it seems to me that you, like the passengers, may have learned to be numb or resign to having noipower to change anything in your surroundings. Please tell me, why did you watch a woman bleed to death? It would be interesting to hear if you attempted any intervention in her case. Fair dues to you if you did, but I feel like you owe a little more detail given that you have brought it up as an example as to how plaintain chips-munching Ghanaian nurses, their bellies obviously grumbling from hunger, long hours and their shite wages, didn't give a fiddlers f*** about the patient's condition. Did you or anyone try to stop the bleeding? Or maybe it was internal bleeding you were referring to? How did you find out that she just didn't have the money to get the treatment she needed to save her life?
So Ghanaians are heartless bastards, but it's ok, cause they are hungry and heartless bastards! That's the big difference. It takes 12 years of living in Ghana to gain an insight that everybody in the 'trotro' (technically speaking inter-city travelling Mercedes vans are not trotros, they are in a lot better shape and the drivers from my experience, and from those I have spoken to, are actually a lot better than many private vehicle drivers - mainly due to their familiarity with thee roads they serve).
Generalisations like 'In Ghana where people are poor and life is cheap' is bullshit in my opinion. I lived in an African community (25 Africans from 15 different countries) for 2 years in Dublin, have lived in community with 70 Ghanaians for the past 7 months, and though it seriously pissed me off that nobody else reacted (in retrospect it is likely that most of those behind me (1/2 of whom were under-18) were half asleep or did not have a clue what had happened, maybe thinking the driver had just gone off road a little) their bodies were by no means emaciated and they were well capable of buying lots of things during the course of the journey. Yes, they struggle to survive a lot more than your average obroni volunteer, but there are a hell of a lot of Ghanaians who have a lot more than me in assets and in their bank accounts.
I have no property like a house or car. I have no aspiration to have a car and would travel by public transport rather than accede to an offer of a 4WD a/c trip from an ex-pat or rich Ghanaian. Not because I wanna be 'down with the scene' (maybe you didn't want to sound condescending but take a step back for a moment and let me explain a bit about myself - for someone like me, a 28 year old teacher who has lived in many countries as a volunteer and/or worker, I ain't no middle class teenie twat with dreads dreaming of rasta land or having my hair braided (if I had any) and spouting on to my friends about how I was once in Africa (good on a CV for many I guess); but rather am from a very working class family in a small town, has worked with homeless people for years who were a lot poorer than those in the Mercedes van, been put in jail for 6 weeks and been 3 1/2 years on bail and deported from the US for political reasons, so have lots of experiences with shithead authorities and people doing 'bad things' - has travelled on far more dangerous roads with dodgier drivers out of necessity, etc. etc. not out of an addiction to danger, what you have commented may have the aura of empathy but I have read it as masked cynicism and sneering.
I simply travel by public transport or buses here because that is how I travel at home. STC in my opinion is not safer. I travelled twice by STC and was not impressed by the drivers' antics. A number of STC bus drivers made very dangerous moves on the same journey as I am addressing here.
So whether by bus, bicycle, metro or hitchiking, that is how I mainly travel. I have been knocked down twice from motorbikes by careless private car drivers, once in broad daylight, luckily escaping serious injury.
I left by van to Kumasi recently from Accra as I really had to get back. We left at about 4 pm and yes, nightfall had descended so things were a little more risky. The risks were the same for those in private vehicles who whizzed past us. Please tell me, have you ever travelled by night in a vehicle here? Has the car you travelled in overtaken other cars? The driver of our van overtook the truck he was attempting to overtake, but he certainly screwed up and went to left. The truck driver ahead should have moved into his hard shoulder but maybe for fear of oncoming pedestrians did not.
Even if the cops used the driver to get money out of him, which I wrote was likely, is paying up for bad driving not a deterrent for the driver? I would think it is.
Emergency services include ambulance, police and fire brigade. They do exist but yes, they are quite non-responsive by all accounts that I have heard. Yet, was it not worth a try under the circumstances? What else could have been tried?
Please source your statement that the accra-kumasi raod has the 6th highest accident rate on earth. I am genuinely interested.
Yes, I've gone on the attack here. Maybe I got a little personal. Sorry if it seems so.
Don't apologize.
Just follow up and follow-through before you leave in August. Even if it means going back to the scene of the crime. And get some press-even if it costs!
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