Editorial: The abuse of sirens and police silence worrying

Sometime in 2014, the John Dramani Mahama administration gave an order to the police to arrest any driver who uses a siren without any lawful authority irrespective of the driver’s status in society. According to the order, only the military, ambulances, police, President, Vice President and Speaker of Parliament were supposed to use sirens.

The order followed reports that private Land Cruiser and other expensive car owners had fixed sirens to their cars, which they use whenever they are caught up in heavy traffic. Though this presidential order was initially obeyed, the situation has moved from bad to worse when these car owners and their drivers realised that the police were not rigorously enforcing it.

After the Mahama administration left the scene, Citi TV, an Accra-based television station also collaborated with the police to arrest, name and shame these ‘big men’ who abuse traffic regulations.

Like the Mahama’s order, these ‘big men’ are abusing the traffic rules in its worse form today, because the TV stations have stopped taking their cameras onto the roads and streets. During the morning and evening rush hours, these Land Cruisers put on their flash lights and drive recklessly through heavy traffic. Interestingly, drivers also give them way because they think a ‘big man’ is coming.

Since the police are unable to act appropriately in these cases, others have also taken advantage of it and are perpetrating the worse form of traffic abuses in the country. As we have earlier indicated, only ambulances, police, military personnel on official duties, the President and Vice and the Speaker of Parliament are supposed to use sirens.

It is, however, unfortunate nowadays to see motorbike riders leading a convoy carrying a dead body to the cemetery. These young men are so aggressive that they stop at traffic intersections and order other road users to stop so they can move the dead body to the cemetery. Any driver who dares disobey their orders can have his windscreen smashed by these marauding youth.

The Chronicle finds this development, especially on the streets of Accra, very disturbing, but the police are surprisingly not doing anything to stop the practice. Ghana is not of banana state where each and every one can do whatever pleases him or her.

We are a state that is governed by rules and regulations, and among these regulations is that no one has the right to use a siren or block a road without any legal authorisation.

Anyone who breaches this simple rule must be arrested and prosecuted by the law enforcement agencies, and in this case, the police. Why the latter has sat down for this to happen without taking any action against the offenders is a puzzle we, at The Chronicle, are struggling to elucidate. Looking at the way armed robbers are operating of late, we shall not be surprised if they also start using hearse and under the guise of going to the cemetery to bury a loved one,  drive through traffic with ease and abscond with their booty.

About five years ago, Customs officers at Asikuma Junction in the Eastern Region, arrested a group of people who claimed they were carrying a sick person to hospital in an ambulance, but were in truth carrying large quantity of Indian hemp to Accra for sale. It took the vigilance of the Customs officers to detect the trick and arrest the suspects.

If the current abuse of traffic on the roads by motorbike riders is allowed to continue, criminals will take advantage of the situation to commit all sorts of crimes, and is this what the police are interested in seeing? No, we do not think the Inspector General of Police would be happy should this happen, and this why we are pleading with him to urgently do something about the development.

Criminals are always looking for security lapses to capitalise on, and we should not give them the leeway to execute their agenda.

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