Ghana’s Roads of Sorrow: Tankers, Dump Trucks, and Trailers on the country’s deadliest corridors

Trailers, Tankers and Tipper Trucks Heavy-duty trucks like tippers, tankers, and trailers rely on air brake systems rather than the hydraulic brakes found in ordinary cars.

Together, these cases point to the same underlying problem: heavy vehicles operating with brakes that were leaking, unbalanced, overheated, or inadequately repaired, often because routine air-brake maintenance is skipped or poorly executed until it fails at the worst possible moment.

These heavy-duty vehicles use compressed air stored in cylinders to operate large mechanical brakes.