On Saturday morning, a woman boarded a bike from her domicile to attend her daily chores and to return to her husband and children in the evening, but while in route to fulfill her plan the story changed: a speeding truck loaded with sand from ELWA’s intersection direction going toward Robertsfield thwarted the woman’s returning home plan by instantly crushing to death she and the bike rider. Their remains were scattered on the road under construction; writes Ojuku Silver-tongue Kangar Jr.
According to eyewitness account, the truck cut the woman into parts and mashed the bike rider’s head, leaving his brain and the spray of their blood on the crushed rocks, near the late Momo Gebbah (aka Bulldog) house.
Trucks loaded with sand, crushed rocks, planks, logs or container trucks that often ply the Robertsfield Highway disregard motorbikes and tricycles with passengers and other commercial vehicles because of the large strong-frame advantage they have over them—in the eventuality of collusion.
The gruesome corpses of the accident victims were placed in a tapoline bag and taken away for burial, leaving every eye flooded as onlookers walked away with dirge.
Due to fear, onlookers informed the Hot Pepper that the truck driver escaped the accident scene and went to an unknown destiny to safe his life. But the Dump Truck Union of Liberia’s President, Sangarie, disclosed that the driver was later arrested and is in police custody.
With profound sympathy and in anger, mobs put fire on the truck and burned it, with Sangarie responding that“life is valuable than truck”.
Police barricaded the accident scene and the burned truck, but the truck was removed on the same day. However, since the occurrence of the accident and up topresent pedestrians still flock to the scene tear-eyed; likewise passengers and non-passengers peeping through cars windshields to catch a glimpse of the tragic scene.
Accordingly, citizens along the Robertsfield Highway have called on the Liberia National Police (LNP) to regulate the movement of trucks that often ply the road in order to avoid the recurrence of such a fatal accident. In March 2023 a truck killed a police officer along with six persons on the same road.