Ghana- traffic

When Reflections did a blog update about driving it caused my mind to wander back to the topic of driving and traffic in Ghana. In Ghana, you weave in and out of traffic, from the left to the right side of the road. You squeeze in-between cars, trucks and vans, barely squishing through, all the while trying your best not to hit a pedestrian.

Lovely white lines adorn the tarred roads. They do look quite straight; however, there is little purpose for them being there. The lines indicate there should be two lanes; in actual fact, the two lanes span out into four lanes or more of jumbled cars. The amazing thing is each car makes it through with a minimal amount of accidents. Sometimes there are three lanes which transform into six lanes of traffic.

Here you see a picture of...no not a car park or parking lot....this picture is what used to be Tetteh Quarshie Round about. It has since been made into a lovely overpass. The traffic is not this bad anymore, however, coming out of East Legon, the lanes disappear and the amazing transformation into a blob of cars happens prior to straightening out.


When I first came to the Seattle area, I was warned of the 'traffic.' I kept wondering where this supposed traffic was. I left early in the morning, late in the afternoon and at other miscellanious times, but I never could find this traffic jam people talked about. It occured to me, everyone has their own version of what 'traffic' looks like. Seattle traffic compared to Ghana traffic was not traffic at all. It is, again, a matter of perspective.

It would be interesting to find out traffic/road stories from other parts of the world. What is their perspective?