Drivers fear as traffic lights near Graphic go dead

The non-functioning traffic lights at an intersection close to the Graphic Communications Group Limited on the Graphic Road at Adabraka in Accra has left motorists and pedestrians vulnerable.

Drivers plying the road have raised red flags about their vulnerability to road accidents at the intersection because of the broken-down traffic lights at the junction.

Eight traffic lights at the intersection have not functioned for more than two years, compelling drivers to jostle for the right of way.

Over the past two years, personnel of the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the police service have held the fort once in a while usually when heavy traffic builds on the stretch.

In their absence, drivers manoeuvre haphazardly, sometimes coming to near accidents and threatening pedestrians’ safety.

Danger

“This junction is dangerous; sometimes you think you have the right of way and before you realise, a speeding car is in your way. They have to do something about it,” a commercial bus (trotro) driver, Mr Henry Quartey, told the Daily Graphic.

Another driver, Mr Roman Amedome, who said he once drove into a motorbike, said it took divine intervention for the life of the rider to be saved.

“I was coming from Adabraka, the motorbike rider was coming from the direction of Abbosey Okai, and it happened so fast, we crashed. His motorbike was flying.

Luckily, he only got some scratches on his arms.

“If the traffic light was working, it would have prevented the accident,” he said.

Yet another motorist, Ms Cynthia Tawia, said she always got scared descending from the Graphic Overpass towards the intersection because of the fear of a speeding driver from Adabraka running into her vehicle.

For Nelson Quartey, a courier service operator, his encounter with catastrophe was in October last year when he lost balance of his motorbike in an attempt to swerve an oncoming vehicle from Accra only to end up crashing into one of the traffic lights.

No traffic

But it is not everybody who is unhappy with the broken-down traffic lights.

Some drivers, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, said in the absence of the traffic lights, congestion had reduced on the route.

“In the past, by 3p.m., you see traffic building up on the Accra side of the road, but these days, we don’t experience those. I’m suspecting that it is the traffic lights.

We don’t need them,” Mr Samson Boahene who drives a private vehicle said.

A trotro driver, who only gave his name as Badu, agreed with the assertion, saying there was no need to fix the traffic lights as it rather brought congestion to the area during the rush hour.

Recent calls and a message sent to the Department of Urban Roads (DUR) Engineer in charge of Development and Traffic, Nana Kwame-Fori Obuobi, were not answered.

Earlier in February 2018, however, he had indicated to the paper that there was a temporary power problem with those traffic lights that would be fixed before the end of March that year.

He said the DUR was holding discussions with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to find a solution to the problem.