The Meaning Of Traffic Lights

“When you see the traffic light, there is something you should know, red means stop, yellow means get ready, green means go, go, go and gooooo”. This is what every child was taught in primary school, as part of educating children on road use.                                                                                                                                                             

Traffic lights are signaling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations to control competing flows of traffic.                                                                                                                                             As the rhyme rightly implies, green allows traffic to proceed in the direction denoted, the yellow denotes getting ready to stop or move of the intersection, and red prevents any traffic from proceeding, if it’s safe to do so. This shows the power symbolic conventions have to ensure sanctity on our roads. 
                                                       

The world’s first traffic lights were invented by J P Knight, installed outside the British houses of parliament in London December 10 1868. Some inventors produced non illuminated words “stop” and “proceed”, “stop” and “move’. Some were also manually managed.                                                                              Around 1920, William Potts a Detroit policeman invented (unpatented) several automatic traffic light systems including an overhanging four way, red green and yellow was the first to use yellow lights.                                                     

In Ghana, the most frustrating and life threatening moment on our roads is how to maneuver through the congestion of cars as a result of dysfunctional traffic lights, and the little said about roundabouts and intersections without this facility the better. The exigent need as drivers to stretch out ones neck impatiently honks his car horn so annoyingly and the temptation to drive through is very high. And the unimaginable may happen if there is no traffic corps around to bring the situation under control.                                   

Recently the transport and traffic unit(MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service have been on most intersections and roundabouts which may imply the dysfunctional nature of our traffic lights, road users  not educated enough on how the traffic works or citizens not willing to comply with the regulations of the traffic system in Ghana.       The dysfunctioning of streets lights hence the slow movement of cars according to BIG JOE who chartered a taxi to sakumono had a slap on his face and phone snatched on the sakumono beach road. Some drivers also claim hawkers deliberately demobilize the facilities so they can commerce their unsolicited business of directing traffic for some funds.

I’d want to believe all road users know how the traffic lights operate in Ghana, but to my amazement, that is not the case. In  Accra pedestrians are seen crossing roads with a red indication on the zebra crossing, drivers still proceed with a red light .i am wondering, is it a problem of ignorance or disobedience, perhaps it’s a combination of both, period!

The gross misconduct on the roads and sheer indecency leaves little to be desired in the natural scheme of things, pedestrians who were taken into consideration with the establishments of traffic lights in order for them to have ample time to cross the road without succumbing to difficulties which may be posed by adamant drivers on the roads while crossing, unashamedly ignore the indicators. On the other side of the divide are our noble drivers who recklessly flout traffic regulations so as to get passengers on the way engage in rat races with other drivers. Question one might ask is: are traffic lights a blessing or curse? In my estimation they are a blessing shrouded by the faults and flaws of negligent drivers and equally irresponsible pedestrians.