Accident

The Roads Kills Again, and again, and…

Another road accident, another unchained driver killing numerous people.

 

The context

A truck carrying a load of logs is speeding down the Yaoundé-Mbalmayo axis. The driver is allegedly sleeping on the wheel. Music is playing so loud that everyone withing a ten-mile radius must be hearing it. Must be to keep him awake. The bus of a local travel company is making his way to Sangmelima with at least 30 people on board, unaware of the danger lying ahead. The truck is attempting to pass cars and is finding itself on the opposite lane. 

The bus is coming ahead. The truck is going too fast, it can’t escape the inevitable, the bus tries…it’s too late. The truck falls and hits the bus and then….

 

The horror

 

The aftermath

A scene from the goriest of movies except, this is real life. Bodies lathering the road, body parts and pieces of flesh in plain view. Pools of blood making it seem it is the color the concrete. Numerous dead including the majority of the people on the bus and the driver of the truck. I don’t mean to be this descriptive but you have to visualize the site to feel the anger that is taking over me as I’m typing this.

 

Enough is enough

 

The questions

      1. Why does this keep happening?
      2. Why can’t our roads be safer?
      3. Who gives driver licenses to these truck drivers?
      4. Why aren’t rules being implemented to the letter?
      5. How many more people have to die?
      6. Who allowed that truck to be on the road during the day?

Again, HOW MANY MORE PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE???

 

What are your questions?  tell me

 

Few more thoughts

It should tell you something when people aren’t shocked anymore when those accidents occur. All you hear people say is “another one?”. Yes another one. Another one that won’t change things. A truck goes down a hill in Douala and take lives on its way down, nothing. In Yaoundé another truck kills children on their way home from school because the inexperienced mechanic couldn’t manage to stop its deadly descent, nothing happens. Back to Douala: a small travel bus falls into a filth-filled river making the retrieval of dead bodies next to impossible and nothing happens.

 

[But you say:] Oh! but Anne, rules were implemented right after those incidents

 

First off, these aren’t incidents, these are accidents! Grave, effing deadly accidents. And the only way for any of these rules to have any effects is for the people to not only implement them but follow through with said implementation.

 

People's lives have to matter. Everybody's life, no exception! Click To Tweet


[Not so] Fun Fact

 

Dla-Yde
The axis Yaoundé-Douala is one the deadliest roads (yes roads) in the world.
via http://assos-adnn.com/

 

My solutions?

How much time do we have?

  1. Stricter rules as it pertains to obtaining driver licenses. The fact that you don’t have to either go to a driving school or actually pass the test to get your license is an abomination. This endangers all.
  2. To become a truck driver, the rules should be so strict that only the serious and dedicated go through with it.
  3. Trucks, any trucks, should not be allowed to be on the road during daytime. Period. Done. No ifs, buts or ands. This should be non-negotiable.
  4. Any road control unit who lets a truck go through should be reprimanded.
  5. Better and stricter technical inspections of vehicles.
  6. No letting cars older than 7 years enter the country

 Most importantly we need better roads. These…things, “gifts” of the early days of independence, are not suited to the way we live and drive today: there are way more cars and way more drivers. This country needs to adapt. We don’t even have a proper highway. How?

img_0004
Narrow roads of Yaoundé
via https://yakcast.files.wordpress.com

Roads have to be broadened. Trucks need their own lane. People need to drive better. And the authorities need to do their damn job protecting us.

 

[Most of] These road accidents are preventable. It need to stop. 

 

Photo Source: http://www.africapresse.com/

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