Take Metro Mass- We Can Squish Tro-Tros!

7/18/2011

2 Comments

The text reads:

Don't disturb the driver
Your safety is our concern
We will take you there safely
We are dependable

I guess it never hurts to be in the biggest vehicle on the road.

2 Comments

Carey

7/18/2011 05:18:59 am

haha Well, I guess that was kind of the idea behind those gigantic SUVs that were so popular with soccer moms in the early aughts. Clearly it reassures people!

Ryan

8/4/2011 06:29:46 am

It's not jut about the size -- metro mas also goes SLOW. I used to take it a lot, especially out to Central region. It may take 2 hours longer, but it is safe. I was willing to pay 2 hours to arrive safely, as were my fellow passengers.

I find the "safety premium" fascinating.

Someone from the IPA had the interesting observation: Ghana's roads are so good, they build in bumps to make them worse. This is clearly one type of safety premium.

On the trip back from Togo this weekend, we probably stopped at a dozen police checkpoints. Literally. At first, this looked like corruption; if we didn't have our registration, we would have had to pay a dozen "fines".

Then the checkpoints ended and our driver promptly accelerated to his preferred bowel-loosening speeds. I came to see the checkpoints as a safety premium, and was praying for another attempted shakedown.

What other safety premiums are there in Ghana?
At what point might people start paying tro-tro drivers to slow down? How might they do this? How might the government make low-cost safety improvements, without encouraging corruption?

(Our Togolese co-passengers were traveling without passports and simply paid a 1000 CFA "fine" to pass at the passport-checking police stop).

The "4 Persons Died Here" signs are another interesting phenomenon that might deserve your reporting.

BLOG

Take Metro Mass- We Can Squish Tro-Tros!

Leave a Reply.

About Liz

Archives

Categories