A general observation throughout the city of Accra shows most of the suburbs would have been very dark without light sources reflecting from the homes of individuals, and this is so worrying when there is financial arrangement to make sure the city of Accra, without even adding the rest of the county’s major cities, is lighted at night to ensure there is security and safety for life and property.
Light as a known fact, reduces to a certain extent crime at night because the perpetrator will be seen, identified, arrested and punished.
The absence of street lights has caused a lot of pedestrian knock downs and sometimes death which do not come into the public domain, because they fall always on the blind side of the media, and so go unnoticed.
A particular case in reference which can be cited as an example out of the numerous cases of pedestrian knock down due to street darkness was when a gentleman called Leslie closed from work one evening heading towards home in Oshie, an area after Bortianor all in Accra driving along the Odorkor – Mallam stretch of the highway.
According to Leslie, he suffered some stress and trauma after hitting and nearly killed a grown up man as he approached the McCharty hill traffic light in Accra one night. He said he was all alone in the car so he was very focused on his driving when all of a sudden he heard a big bang as if someone had used an object to hit his car.
After the bang sound, he heard a man scream out loud, ‘aaaahhhh’ which made him noticed he had knocked down someone so he pulled over to one side, switched on the hazard indicator, stepped out and walked back to check if his thinking was right, and sadly he saw this person, a man of about 40 years old lying on the street wounded by the hit.
Passersby who saw the incident came to help them both otherwise any oncoming vehicle could run over the victim and kill him.
Narrating the story, Leslie said, “I was moving at a speed between 50 & 60km/h and did not see anyone moving or attempting to cross or crossing the road because the whole area was totally dark, and it was around 9:00pm.
In fact when I heard the bang sound followed by the loud cry, I had two things thinking about and I needed to act fast to deciding what to do. The first idea was to move away because it was late as it could be a ploy to attack and rob me, and the second thinking was to courageously move out to help an injured person I have knocked down, but I blamed it on the absence street of light”.
Leslie reported the incident to the police and his car was impounded after he had done all the rounds in making sure the victim was taken to the hospital with a police escort and back.
According to him he was partially detained after writing his statement and was bailed by a brother who together had to spend hours at the police station at Odorkor.
Fast forwarding, a similar incident occurred a couple of years back directly in front of a furniture shop at Kaneshie about 300 meters from the traffic light towards Mataheko. Sadly in this incident, the victim who was crossing the dual carriage way from first light going towards Mataheko in Accra was killed.
This victim had climbed onto the island (the middle portion of the road usually with trees, grass and flowers) between the two dual carriages and unfortunately for the victim, he was knocked down and instantly killed because in the dark he hit his foot against a stone on the island when he was almost about to step down onto the street, and this threw him off completely onto the road. Because there was no light, oncoming vehicles could not see him which was very obvious.
More than one vehicle ran over the man till witnesses moved closer and with the use of their shirts started flagging up to slow down and completely stop the speeding cars from Mataheko to Kaneshie first light to allow the dead man to be moved away from the road. It was a very sad thing to watch, but it can only be blamed on the darkness on the road at the time.
Another incident occurred on the Odorkor road very recently where a driver did not see a pot hole created by the recent rains, and so drove through it and had his lower arm giving way plus the vehicle’s ball joint also removing from under the car. But for the fact that no car was following it directly in the same lane, it would have been a disastrous incident.
Speaking to the vehicle owner and for that matter the driver of the car, a VW Jetta, he said if the street lights were working he would not have fallen into the pot hole or run through it.
It was a sad evening for the gentleman and he lamented seriously of how to get money to have the car moved or towed away to the nearest garage for it to be repaired.
These stories raise the eyebrow when we come to think of the fact that we are levied anytime we buy electricity to be used commercially and domestically in the name of street lightening. As a matter of fact, there are people working or employed to take care of the street lightening, but it is as if no one cares about whether the lights are broken down and needs to be fixed or not.
Human life, and property must be protected and thus the responsibility of the designated department to ensure we are protected. Street lightening …. Who is in charge?
The department responsible must wake up, and ensure we live in a safer environment, comfortable and happy for after all life is short. The officer in charge must be accosted for negligence of duty.
The levies that are taken must be appropriately applied in a manner that will ensure sustainability in the maintenance and provision of street lights. There should be constant monitoring to ensure damaged lights are repaired or replaced as and when the need arises.
Couple of drivers at different locations within the city revealed pedestrians suffer ‘hit and run’ always due to lack of street lights.
By Joseph David Clottey
