Recalling How Toyota Has Let Us Down

Village goat 1, Toyota 0...

Early last year we picked up our brand new shiny white Toyota Fortuner from the dealership in Accra. Buying a car new and from the dealer is at once a luxury as well as a necessity if you want a reliable car in Ghana. There are a lot of what is called ‘home used’ cars on the market- that have been used abroad and sent to Ghana in various stages of disrepair, with no guarantees of any sort.

So it was great to pull off the lot in the new smelling 4x4, once we’d convinced them to remove the plastic wrappers from all the seats (apparently in Ghana many new car buyers like to keep it on as a status thing…) ANYWAY – it was certainly a step down from the shiny new model Land Cruisers bought in bulk by the NGOs in town, but it was a Toyota – a brand I’ve always trusted.

My very first car as an independent woman was a modest little gold painted, Toyota Corolla. It was used and unassuming, but it represented an important phase in my life – my first days as a newly single mother and business owner, and that little car was so reliable! I washed it every weekend myself in the summer and treated it to car washes in the winter. It carried my most important human cargo every day – my little boy – and it served me without a hitch for years. Since then I’ve always had the naïve appreciation and trust in Toyota as a company. Made in Japan meant quality, reliability, longevity…

But something has changed with Toyota. Something dangerous and far reaching. It threatens to damage a solid reputation.



Back in Ghana, on the road, the first hour out of the dealership we were on the pseudo-highway, headed down the coast. As soon as we hit 95km, the car made a strange noise. JW, unlike me, is quite in tune with cars. He knew immediately something was wrong. This problem persisted and a vibration happened any time we went above this speed.

It had to be sent back for wheel realignment. It never got better.

Then one day, on a Sunday drive to the beach, a car in front of us lost it’s bumper at full speed – it just fell/flew off and it was up to JW to react fast, which he did. But our Fortuner had it’s own ideas. As soon as he swerved, the car felt unsteady, unbalanced and as if it would tip right over. It was quite scary.

Another Sunday soon after, a goat wandered into the road, as they are apt to do – in fact on the roads of Ghana, one must be ready for random animals, children and stray car parts to float into your path without warning, oblivious to your presence or speed. JW swerved again and the car wobbled precariously, seeming for that split second that it would overturn, before righting itself. It was frightening.

We did some research and found out these models are assembled in South Africa. They have been banned in many Western countries for being too top heavy, too dangerous.

SO – it seems Toyota have been trying to send the junk models into Africa.

We gave the car into the work pool and bought a Mitsubishi…



With all the recent recalls of Toyota cars in the west, I now believe they have cut corners in all their markets. The president of the company, (Mr. Toyota!) actually made a public statement last week that the company had grown too fast and priorities had become confused.

Once a company with a long held reputation for quality starts endangering people’s lives around the world to save a few pennies and sell bulk vehicles, it’s time to lose the loyalty. Time to turn somewhere else. I think our next car will be a German one…

It's a long road to Takoradi...

We had to drive down Ghana’s coast to Takoradi this week for an Oil & Gas trade Show. The highway has finally been repaved and fixed all the way past Takoradi (all hail the Japanese for their donations and subsequent contract win – oh and the Japanese construction overseers on the ground!).

So – you’d think the 200km drive would be reduced from the 5 hour journey it used to be (during the good old pothole days…)



BUT NO! Alas, this is Ghana and nothing can be straightforward. Now since the road was smooth and clear, the trotro drivers decided to take it a step too far and drive like ABSOLUTE lunatics, and consequently there have been something like 60 massive fatal accidents on that road since mid last year. All along the way you are reminded by Toyota sponsored bright red signposts that warn, “Overspeeding kills!” and then list the number of people who died at that particular spot in a tragic accident. One of the signs listed 70 people! Others were 12, 5, 32... and there were many! And you just know that didn’t include the numerous others who were carried away (in taxis) and died at hospitals later due to neglect, inability to pay etc.etc…

So now, as a reaction to this carnage, they have put up 50km limits on half of the highway, and numerous speed traps to ensure you don’t go a kilometer over 50… but mostly the speed traps ensure a steady income for those lucky officers… not to mention the fact that the ‘highway’ was rebuilt right in the same place, running directly through every village along the way, with random goats and unaccompanied three year old kids wandering across….

Also, since the new government has taken hold, the police are hungry and hence there are about 20 police roadblocks between Accra and Takoradi… which are annoying and depending on how hungry the guys are, can be quite expensive too!

Then there are the infamous rumble strips… everywhere along the road you are subjected to butt jiggling, kidney shuffling road bumps – put in to replace the potholes I presume…. All with an aim of slowing everyone down.

The brave start overtaking at every corner keeping me with white knuckles in the passenger seat and gasps aplenty... it seems some people just cannot judge distance or danger! All the while, the road provides enough emissions to choke a nation... cars here pass roadworthy through a cheap 'dash' (read bribe)....

So coughing and cringing and stopping and whinging... it eventually took us 4.5 hours both ways…

Overall the journey is a ridiculous experience of Ghana at it’s worst.

There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference - Ghana shows it's darker side

I’ve been blogging a lot lately about the perils of the health system, or lack of it, in Ghana. Combined with corruption, horrendous driving (with the resultant high rates of car accident deaths), and a general lack of respect for life, Ghana has a serious side that so many of my fellow bloggers choose to ignore or are simply naïve about.

One of my cyber friends, the Irishman in Ghana, recently took a trip from Accra to Kumasi – which is generally known as one of the most dangerous roads in Ghana He was in a tro tro at night. BAD idea.

His blog post HERE is worth a read. I of course chimed in on the comments section with my jaded reply.

As a foreigner it is a common reaction to assume a car would stop if it hit or ran over a person! And an equally normal assumption that someone should call emergency services. In this case however, the tro tro he was in kept driving, and to his amazement all the passengers were fine with that. When he reported the incident to the police later, nothing was done about it (except for the police no doubt bribing the driver).

The next day when he asked his fellow colleagues who were Ghanaian what he should do about it, they told him to drop it. Today I shared his story with some Ghanaian friends and colleagues, and people laughed. Not a happy laughter but once of futility and despair. Their responses were all along the lines that he was naïve to think anyone would care.

Over the weekend in Accra, a man was hit at about 4am by a taxi which did not stop. By 6am the body had been run over by no less than 3 other vehicles. That means no one stopped – and even once they had crunched and bumped over the mass of a body under their tires, they carried on. This article was published in the local paper, but when I tried to find it online today, I realized it wasn’t important enough to make it to the online news in Ghana.

Recently a friend of mine came to me to tell me that his 36 year old brother was missing after having a minor argument with a fellow tenant in the compound where he lived. It was discovered that three thugs had ‘beaten’ the man and since then he’d not been seen. Two weeks later, thanks to an article the family had run in the newspaper about their missing brother, his body was identified at a local hospital. They had been about to bury his body in a mass grave. No investigation, no questions asked. Luckily the family had closure. But now there was a murder case to follow surely??

You would think so, but then you would be a naïve foreigner. In fact, the three people responsible were taken reluctantly into custody, but bailed out within a day. Now the family is being asked for installments of money to ‘help the inspector’ with his investigations. Yet nothing is happening. No one shows up at the court for the case. The family is not wealthy or well connected and they cannot afford the bribes... the case will die. And that is the sad fact. A 36 year old man beaten to death – no repercussions for the perpetrators.

We went to the funeral and across the crowd, who sat on the rented chairs straddling the open gutter in the heat of the midday sun, fanning themselves with the funeral pamphlet, I made out the dead man’s mother. I saw the genuine grief in her eyes. A grief I know too well. A parent should never outlive their child. I realized though, as I watched the neatly dressed men load the coffin into the ambulance, as they do here (ambulances being used for bodies as opposed to the sick but alive), that in Ghana it happens all the time.


You could be a toddler in a village and catch malaria, or an unfortunate cyclist on the road to Kumasi at night. You could have an argument with the wrong guy or stumble out in front of a car. In Ghana you will probably die. And there will probably be a funeral and Ghana will move on.

My Irish friend likened the reactions of his fellow passengers to fear, assuming that it was this fear that stopped them from forcing the driver to stop and assist the person he’d hit.

But I’ve been thinking and come to the conclusion that is the opposite that is true. What happens in society when there are no consequence for our actions? When we have nothing to fear from authority and also nothing to gain. No welfare from the government, no protection from the authorities. It makes people lawless and also concerned with themselves only. Why help an accident victim on the road if you will be asked to pay his hospital bill or watch him be ignored? Why stop to help someone you’ve hit when the police don’t care and will not persecute you in any way?

I guess I’m the Thomas Hobbes in this discussion, with Ghana representing humans in a state of nature - in a 'war of all against all', without a controlling authority… I'm definitely thinking far too much, far beyond my reach…

All these sad events have made me a backyard philosopher. Time to indulge in some soft fleshy mango and slices of the sweetest and best pineapple in the world – and remember some of the things I love about Ghana!