By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Since the end of the civil war Sierra Leone has embarked on many forms of development. Infrastructure has taken the lion share, especially in the last seven years.
A lot of credit has been given to the Ernest Bai Koroma-led administration for the construction of many roads in the country, some of which are Regent to Grafton road, Wilkinson Road to Lumley, Spur Road to Lumley, Peninsular road, Hill Side by-pass road, and a number of others in the provinces.
These constructions have eased movement of people, both in terms of access and traffic flow.Nevertheless, some of the roads, mainly because of how they were constructed, have become death traps. A typical example is the road leading from Spur Road to Lumley, especially at the intersection opposite the Lumley Police Station.
The Sierra Leone Police (SLP) could not provide specific statistics for individual accidents, so we have not been able to know how many accidents have occurred at this spot. But sources say at least three accidents occurred there per year since 2013 when the road construction was completed.
Officials at the Coroner’s office at the Connaught Hospital Mortuary in Freetown told Politico that in 2015 alone they did post mortems on more than 14 corpses associated with accidents at that same spot.
“Most of the victims were pedestrians and they all died of a common cause of death which is multiple fractures,” said Sinneh Kamara, Technician at the Coroner’s office.
Because of the frequency of accidents at this spot, the SLP Traffic Division in 2014 moved the Lumley car park, which used to be directly beside the intersection, to somewhere along the Lumley Beach Road. But that only reduced the number of possible casualties. It did not stop the accidents. Observers and residents in the area said the problem was with the road.
No serious action
Mahmoud Sesay has owned a property in the area for the last 25 years. He told Politico that accidents only started occurring there when the construction of the road was completed in 2013.
“Last year a truck hit my shop and apart from the lives that were lost, I lost up to Le 60 million in damaged goods,” he narrated. Sesay’s shop shares the same compound with FIBank, next to which stands a private residence which was the scene of the latest accident few months ago.
A lot of the drivers, residents and pedestrians living and plying that route have raised concerns over how narrow the roundabout is. And the road running down is steep and sloppy, they say.
Some residents have told Politico that they have been making complaints to the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA), but that no serious action has been seen taken.
At the moment there is a huge bill board erected on the footpath on the road and, according to residents, this is with the permission of SLRA. And this bill board, just a yard or two over one of the nearby residential buildings, poses a serious danger to the people. In fact, according to sources, during the last accident another bill board was hit and it fell over and damaged the windshields of two stationary vehicles in the same compound.
Engineers and drivers have suggested that speed bumps could be effective in checking the speed vehicles come with from Spur Road. Some others have proposed the construction of a giant retaining wall to help protect lives and property of the residents in that area.
Above all there are suggestions that SLRA should be more proactive in monitoring ongoing road constructions across the country to avoid the obvious mistakes on roads like the Spur Road-Lumley intersection. Several attempts to reach SLRA authorities for comments on the matter proved futile.
Common cause
Almost all the accidents at the Spur Road-Lumley intersection,residents say, have involved heavy duty vehicles and trucks. And the common cause has been break failure.
Some people have warned that heavy vehicles should be stopped from plying that route, noting that until then there can be no guarantee that another accident will not happen.
Normally between the hours of 5pm and 9pm, there is a heavy traffic along the Wilkinson-Lumley route. There are fears that, in the event of a similar accident from the Spur Road direction, more lives could be in danger. In the meantime, figures of deaths by road accidents continue to remain a major concern.
Latest statistics from the Traffic Division of the SLP show that 195 people died in road accidents countrywide in 2015, although there was a reduction from the previous year, when the police recorded 261 deaths from road accidents.
The police say they are working with relevant stakeholders, including the Drivers’ Union, and Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority to tackle the situation.
“Accidents could be predicted and therefore prevented,” Superintendent Ambrose Sovula, Head of Traffic Division, said at a press conference last week presenting the latest statistics.
Talking about predictability, accidents are nowhere more predictable than they are at the Spur Road-Lumley route.
According to the police’s statistics, between 2012 and 2015, a total of 949 lives have perished on the roads of Sierra Leone. Most of the victims are passengers and pedestrians. Drivers usually escape such accidents.
With such figures of epic proportion in mind, authorities responsible must step up not just to review the road safety protocols, but also to look into the engineering design of the road during construction.
(C) Politico 20/01/16
