It is a routine for Alhassan to send his four children to and back from school every weekday. The family lives 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 four children on his small motorbike to school and brings them home after classes. All of them do not wear helmet or any protective gear.
He takes extra care on the road, a distance of aboutthree kilometres, to avoid crashing his family into other motorists.
He told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that: ‘I know 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 the Greater Tamale Area. Mariam also, without wearing any protective gear, ‘loads’ all her three children on her small motorbike to and from school (all without any protective gear).
‘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 said.
‘Procuring the 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 Northern Region, who ‘overload’ their motorbikes with their children. Many parents 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 could be seen sleeping as they sat on the motorbikes without any protection.
This is because public transport is not common in the area and some parents also think hiring taxi serviceswill be a burden on their pockets.
The dangers, statistics, and law enforcement measures
On Friday, January 28, 2022, a woman carrying two children (believed to be two and four years old) on a motorbike riding towards Kalpohin Estate from Kalpohin Low Cost in Tamale, sped and overtook a tipper truck, and right after that, she hit a speed ramp, making the motorbike to spring.
The two children, who did not have the capacity to firmly hold onto the motorbike, fell. The tipper truck could not stop instantly, and ran over the children, killing them instantly.
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 fueling 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. About a monthlater, a man carrying four children on a motorbike from school, crashed into a tricycle on the TTH – Town Road, where they sustained severe injuries.
While motorbike crashes are common in the region, statistics on such crashes are not reliable as most are not reported. In most cases, when the injuries are not severe, the victims prefer treatment at home. Statistics from the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) show that 135 motorbike crashes were reported in the region in 2022 as against 117 in 2021.
However, there is no statistics regarding the number of persons killed or injured as result of the crashes because the data is mixed with those involving vehicles as well. Meanwhile, the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), which attends to most of the cases, reported that head injuries due to motorbike crashes were 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 in 2021, died from severe head injuries whilst 16 others, who were on admission with such injuries, also died.
Among the top five causes of admission at the hospital were head injuries and fractures sustained through motorbike crashes, with some of the victims being children.
Mr Abdulai Bawa Ghamsah, the Northern Regional Director of NRSA, 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 the motorbikes was a big worry to the NRSA.
‘Sometime ago, we tried to stop the practice, but people were giving flimsy excuses and explanations as to why they engaged in it,’ he said.
He shared his experience regarding a question asked him by a man, who carried four children on his motorbike, saying ‘the man asked me, chief, if you have two wives, who have two children each, and you have to send them to school with one motorbike, which of them will you take first and which second?’
‘What will be the consequences be when you come back? Your wives will fight with you over your choice that you like this woman more than me. That is why you carried her children first. This is why I carry all the four of them at a go.’
He said the NRSA tried to educate motor riders on road traffic regulations and to avoid overloading, while enforcing the laws to address the situation, however, 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 Alexander Obeng, the 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.
He said riders who violated the law were being arrestedand that the enforcement of the law would be intensified to stop the practice.
How others are addressing the situation
The Good Shepherd Schools Complex and Etoile Royale Educational Centre are some of the private schools in Tamale that run bus services for their pupils and students.
The authorities of these schools told the Ghana News Agency that they introduced the bus services toprioritise the safety of the pupils and lessen the burden on parents, who must abide by the daily routine ofsending their children to and from school.
They said it was also to stop the practice where some parents used their motorbikes as buses to carry several children to and from school.
The authorities say no crashes were recorded when the bus was operational but had recently suspended the services due to the rising cost of operations and the refusal of some parents to pay more.
Could public transport be a solution?
Late last year, the Government deployed some buses under the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system to the Greater Tamale Area, which plied specific routes and charged low fares. The government has also supplied buses to all the second cycle schools in the area. Most of the time, all those buses remain parked at the schools.
Taking a cue from the Good Shepherd Schools Complex and Etoile Royale Educational Centre, these buses, in addition to the BRT services, could support the transportation of school children to and from school.
This could ensure sanity on the busy streets of the area and ensure the safety of the children.
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. It is true that all the people who use motorbikes as ‘buses’ to carry up to six children to and from school in the Greater Tamale Area know the dangers involved.
If the law is to be strictly 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 the inability to hire the services of taxis, which are also in short supply in the area.
Therefore, any provable solution to this practice must be the responsibility of all.
It will be in the best interest of society if the Government implemented the public transportation system to help reduce, and or stop crashes, injuries and deaths associated with using motorbikes as buses in the Greater Tamale Area.
Source: Ghana News Agency