Look left, look right, look left again!

I loved zebra crossings as a kid. Anytime I appeared beside them, cars stopped and I got to do a dainty skip across the white patches; if such a thing was ever possible. Many times I did it just for the heck of it. I loved the way vehicles stopped promptly at the sight of my commanding self – or so I thought. The one in front of my nursery school was conveniently positioned and of particular interest. It was right at the gates to the school so I reckoned I had no use for the school’s playground; much to the chagrin of the sweet street warden! 

Sad to say zebra crossings as I used to know and experience them are tough ones to pin down on our roads these days and I am no more the kid that wants to skip across them, even if I could find one. Motorists whiz across the hardly visible few on the roads as though they were mere street adornment. I am now the driver that desperately prays for a zebra crossing to materialize whenever I see just about anything that breathes along the road because I cannot tell at which point of the road and when it may jump in the road and cause me to do the unthinkable.

As I pondered the many wonders and hardships of life on the road in Accra it has become clear to me that the seeming absence of zebra crossings may actually be the natural attrition caused by the evolution of the zebra. The process of enlightenment simply involved the unravelling of how the monkey came to be my great grand Pa and voila, the descendants of zebra crossings had been right under my rather wide nose all the while!  So now unlike many who believe zebra crossings are an endangered species, I believe they have evolved. Road users simply have to recognize them and appreciate them for what they are. So here are a few pointers to help you along the way.

I think speed ramps are the most novel descendants of zebra crossings.  They are permanent fixtures on the road. They force you to slow down and in many cases stop to contemplate and negotiate your passage. Sometimes even reconsider your route. And if you so fatefully fail to see them, you are bound to feel them! Perfect road masters. But these are not what make them relatives of zebra crossings. I found that out on a lunch expedition recently. As we approached a speed ramp- my friend was driving- I held my breath as I always do.  No matter how gently one tries to get over them, the average speed ramp in Accra tends to give you a knock on the head anyway. Now my friend is usually not given to slow driving so in addition to holding my breath, my foot instinctively reached for the brakes and found air. They need not have bothered for my friend had come to a stop. A woman, burdened with a large basin of something that she balanced capriciously on her head had stepped onto the speed ramp and was making her way slowly but confidently across the road. On the speed ramp she stood tall and visible. The vehicles simply had to stop to allow her across the road, I mean ramp. The picture so reminded me of my own journeys on the zebra crossings at nursery school and I burst out laughing. Your guess is as good as mine. Speed ramps make excellent zebra crossings and since there is such a craving for them, I am thinking we might as well do the noble thing - cloak them in the white stripes.



decidedly for the neighbour's goodies



 “Cow Crossings” on the other hand were marked by wooden sign posts with cow symbols along country side roads in the past. The animals were hardly in sight. However, since the onset of urban migration the cows have also gone to town, literally. I came upon my first Cow Crossing one fine 6.am while on the school run. At that time of day, vehicles on the dusty road behind my estates – a road that is bound to decide the votes of the people in my area come December 2012 - have their headlights on, are speeding like demons on the run from the famous Bishop and in this frantic contest to wreck their vehicles, rendering the fact that I wash my car every evening seem like a needless fib. Little wonder the vehicles are usually from the direction of a place called “Nsamanpom”, which means “the place of ghosts”. Anyways, just on the outskirts of a posh neighbourhood, I was forced to stop behind most of the vehicles that had rocketed past me. I must say I was quite gratified by the fact that I was side by side with my tormenters and for a brief moment felt minded to stick out my tongue at them. The spectacle before me took that thought away.

Right in the middle of the road was a herd of not less than 20 cows seeming to be having a lively mooey conference to decide their next grazing location. Given the environs of this particular scene, I wondered if my neighbour’s backyard garden was in peril. It was not immediately evident to me where pasture for 20 cows a-grazing was to be found. With no herdsman in sight it took close to 15 minutes of shooing, nudging and some nifty manoeuvrings by daring taxi drivers to create a route for passage in between the bewildered creatures. And soon my former tormentors who had been huffing and puffing pretentiously into their mobile phones began to follow the lead of the taxi drivers.  This encounter was not my last so I look out for the Cow Crossings these days. A word of caution should you come across a Cow Crossing; they do not share the temperament of their forbearers. Those who have ventured to ride over them have paid dearly for that audacity.

As for People Crossings which in my view have an uncanny similarity with Cow Crossings (even though the subjects of the former are bound to insist on a different ranking in the order of species), they leave me speechless. How’s that for shutting my trap for now on this matter?