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The Director of PB Protection Centre, Mr Philip Nana Asante has lashed out at drivers who leave their engines on while fuelling their vehicles at filling stations.

According to him “when drivers go to fuel stations to fill their tanks with engines on, it creates an easy avenue for fire outbreak. Even fuel station attendants are ignorant about this and allow this practice to go on.”

He said improved fire safety measures in private and commercial vehicles is the surest way to curb fire outbreaks on the road.

According to him, many fire outbreaks occur in vehicles because some drivers fail to notice warning signals before a vehicle catches fire.

Speaking to the Daily Heritage in an interview, Mr Asante stated that naked and exposed cables, wrong electrical connections and wrong positioning of batteries among others were some of the major causes of fire outbreaks in vehicles.

Contributing factors

The director mentioned that fixing of wrong size tires under vehicles, employing inexperienced technicians for maintenance activities, using oversised and worn-out mechanisms for replacement, failure to maintain radiation tanks periodically and failure to replace broken radiation fans were some of factors that cause fire outbreaks.

He said the use of sub-standard electrical cables and battery terminal and wrong positioning of car batteries could cause sparks and fires in vehicles.

Car parks

Mr Asante said another challenge in the transport industry is the design and arrangements of car parks.

The health and safety expert noted that many car parks or vehicle terminals in the country are cited among people, exposing many to danger. He mentioned the Kaneshie Main Vehicle Terminal, 37 Trotro Terminal and Madina Vehicle Terminal as examples of car parks which are cited among highly densely populated areas.

Roads

The safety expert noted further that government ought to reduce the bad nature of our roads, “if we want to reduce the rate of vehicle fires, because a vehicle on high speed could pump into a pot-hole and a mechanism could be misplaced resulting in frictional position to generate excessive heat that could lead to fire outbreak.”

“We should work to reduce the risk to the lowest minimum level during re-filling of fuel tanks to save lives and protect property,” he added.

Mr Asante called on the Transport Ministry and various stakeholders in the sector to collaborate to put measures in place to avert vehicle fires.