Public transportation is a big problem in the country. At any time there appears to be more passengers than commercial vehicles, especially on festive occasions such as Easter, Christmas and New Year.
Scenes of would-be passengers stranded at the various lorry parks and by the roadside, particularly in the morning and evening rush hours, are everyday matters in our cities and towns.
This situation has led to all manner of vehicles plying our roads.
Meanwhile, one issue that has always boggled the minds of people is who the real owners of the good old space buses are, especially in an era when the police are busily cracking the whip on car owners and drivers to make their vehicles roadworthy.
Space buses are usually found around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and they only operate between Circle and Odorkor at a snail�s pace.
To many, the buses belong to some officers of the Ghana Police Service. These people think so because almost all the space buses within the Accra metropolis are old, rickety and rusty, to the extent that one wonders how they manage to pass roadworthy tests.
Apart from the ramshackle condition of the buses, they usually break down, with their drivers leaving them on the roads without any proper warning signs.
Recently, The Mirror went round to find out for itself the conditions of the space buses at the places where they operate.
Interestingly, a few had been sprayed to shine on the outside, yet rusty inside, while some had never been sprayed for the past decade or more.
If you have ever sat in any space bus, you would observe that the inside of all the buses is almost the same. Most of the seats are very old, with some of the springs in the seats poking out, posing a danger to passengers.
Besides, some of the buses have no windows and so when there is a strong wind or a heavy downpour, passengers have to endure the situation until they run for cover at their final destinations.
There are a few which have windows in them but some of them have fallen off, while others are very weak to pull to shut.
For some of the buses, the floors are so weak that there are plywood neatly cut to cover the holes left in the floors. Without the plywood in place, passengers can see the surface of the road while the buses are in motion.
With the enforcement of the Road Traffic Regulation 2O12 (LI 2180 Regulation 119 and 120) which provides for the use and fitting of seatbelts in every vehicle, the question is, how are these space buses going to affix seatbelts in their rickety buses?
A space bus driver at Circle who gave his name as Mensah admitted that the space bus he was driving was very weak. Beside, most of the spare parts were hardly available, therefore, he and his driver�s mate had to use strings, poly bags, among others, to protect some parts from falling apart completely.
To ascertain if, indeed, it is true that police officers are the owners of the space buses, The Mirror contacted the officer in charge of Research and Training at the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD), DSP Alexander Kwaku Obeng.
He found the issue a bit thorny but denied the assertion.
He noted that it had been in the grapevine for a long time and wondered why members of the public thought police officers were the owners of the space buses.
�I admit that most of the space buses are not in good condition, but due to the deficit in our public transport system, we sometimes just give them room to operate,� he said.
He, however, noted that in a few years the buses would be phased out.
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