Fallow footbridges – Pedestrians preyed upon on roads

Experts in road safety say footbridges help to reduce pedestrian-vehicular interaction and the incidence of pedestrian crashes. 

It is for this reason that the Road Traffic Regulations, 2012 (L.I 2180) make it mandatory for pedestrians to use footbridges that have been provided at designated sections of highways to prevent road crashes.

Section 154(3) of L.I 2180 states: “A pedestrian who fails to use a footbridge or an underpass where one is provided commits an offence.”

ection 154(10) of L.I 2180 also states: “A person who contravenes this regulation commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than five penalty units or to a term of imprisonment of not more than seven days or to both.

Despite the existence of this regulation and the provision of footbridges at busy intersections on major roads and highways, a number of visits to those facilities revealed that pedestrians continue to put their lives at risk.

Footbridges

At the Kaneshie and Mallam Market footbridges located on the Kaneshie-Kasoa stretch of the Accra-Winneba Highway, it was observed that while pedestrians had abandoned the footbridges and continued to jaywalk at their peril, traders also converted those facilities into trading spots.

Scores of pedestrians abandon the Mallam Market footbridge and continue to jaywalk.

The situation at footbridges located in areas such as the Atomic Junction, Madina Zongo Junction, Nkwantanang, Taifa, Lapaz and Sakaman was not any different as those facilities were lying fallow.

While the footbridges lie predominantly idle, some of the pedestrians, including children, meander their way through moving vehicles and jump over walls and barricades in the median of roads as they move from one side of the road to the other.

Pedestrian walkways that have been created in some parts of the city to aid the movement of people have also been taken over by petty traders.

For instance, pedestrian walkways that stretch from the Graphic Road, Farisco, Kingsway through the Ghana Cocoa Board area to the Central Business District (CBD) of Accra have been heavily encroached by petty traders and hawkers with such impunity that pedestrians have no option but to compete for the road with vehicles and motorcycles.

The failure of members of the public to use footbridges and the taking over of pedestrian walkways by traders have contributed to road crashes, injuries and deaths over the years.

A comprehensive analysis of road traffic statistics from the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) revealed that between 1991 and 2023, 58,156 persons died from 351,278 road crashes across the country, while 461,432 others suffered varying degrees of injury.

A further analysis of the NRSA statistics over a 10-year period (2012 to 2022) revealed that out of the 23,490 people who were killed in road crashes, 8,570 of them were pedestrian knock-downs, representing 36.5 per cent of the total deaths.

This was followed by head-on collisions which claimed 5,331 victims, representing 22.7 per cent of the total deaths within the 10-year period. The other contributors to the remaining deaths were vehicles hitting animals on the road, objects on the road, slide swipes and vehicle running off the road.

A Road Safety Advocacy Consultant at Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), a global road safety international organisation, Bright Oywaya, explained that pedestrian knockdowns were high, especially within the African region, because policy makers and governments were building footbridges that were unfriendly to pedestrians.

“Most of our people in Africa walk a lot. Look at a woman who walks from the market already tired and has to cross the road using a footbridge and the bridge has steep steps, is long; and the women are carrying children. Sometimes, they have to walk over 100 meters to the footbridge to go and climb stairs.”

“If you build a road without bearing in mind that pedestrians should be given priority at every possible opportunity, the crashes will continue to happen,” she added.

The road safety expert said instead of designing footbridges in the form of overpass, African countries must begin to look more towards underpass footbridges that are more convenient for pedestrians to use.

Way forward

The Director-General of the NRSA, David Osafo Adonteng, observed that while underground footbridges were an ideal engineering solution to pedestrian knockdowns, they required more investment.

Pedestrian walkways from the Graphic Press House towards the COCOBOD area taken over by stationary vehicles.

“Some countries have tried underground footbridges and they worked effectively because there are enough security monitoring systems to protect the users of those facilities.

Criminals hide under those bridges to commit crimes; so, there should be cameras to monitor all the time to give users the confidence that they are safe,” he said.

It is important for the NRSA to work with the police and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to clear all footbridges and pedestrian walkways of trading activities.

Urgent steps must be taken to remove any human or structural system that is claiming the lives of thousands of pedestrians on our roads. The reality is that behind all the road crash statistics are real people – husbands, wives, fathers, mothers and children.