Some travellers who patronise the Metro Mass Transit (MMT) buses in the Volta region have expressed fears about the increasing recklessness on the part of the Company’s drivers.
“They drive through potholes, overtake at curves and speed in towns,” Madam Akpene Kpese, a trader and regular passenger of MMT told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Ho on Monday.
Others alleged that the drivers were highly unprofessional on the road and had no regard for safety and customer care. Jonas Armah, a commercial driver who plies the Ho-Accra route said, “I always pray not to meet Metro Mass buses on the road. The drivers are careless and hate to see any car or vehicle ahead of them.”
He alleged that some of the drivers intentionally raised the sound of their engines to scare other road users.
“They don’t respect other road users,” Mr Armah stated. Mr Sebastian Akyeampong, Volta Regional Manager of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) said, “the attitude of some Metro Mass drivers on the road is a great worry to us. They don’t behave well on the road, but we are talking to them. We will get a scape-goat for our case soon.”
Mr Chris Kattah, Volta Regional Manager of MMT in a telephone interview, said his office was also worried about some of its drivers.
“Safety and customer care are our core values but some of our drivers continued to go contrary to these values,” he stated.
Mr Kattah said unfortunately, complaints hardly reached the Company directly about misconduct of its drivers and said the Company would soon set up a complaints unit for that purpose.
He said the Company’s drivers were trained and re-trained regularly and that about 3,000 of them received in-service training three months ago and wondered why the unprofessional behaviour still persisted. Last Sunday, a Metro Mass bus crashed a motorbike rider to death in Ho.