I lurk the streets, which accounts for my obsession with the road. However I will do myself the favour and declare that this will be my last soliloquy about it. Right now I can’t help but comment on road intersections.
I usually stop at an intersection, hitherto junction and wait for the opportune moment or some indication that it is okay to poke my nose (really that of my car) into the road. I have always imagined that’s the way to go most of the time. My nose by the way could use and indeed does threaten to get past the windscreen a good many times; that is if I am to see around the party of sign posts at junctions but I will leave the matter of sign posts for another day.
There’s been a slight change in my behaviour at junctions in recent times. At junctions these days, I keep inching forwards and forwards and then ... dash! Off course I have no intention to graduate to the game of “I got to the junction, didn’t watch who was coming, but didn’t forget to stick my mid finger at the person behind me who almost rammed my behind!” That is a Formula One move I would much rather not try as its only objective seems to be to taunt the brakes of oncoming vehicles. Trends in vehicle importations and scenes at the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority) make it a rather dodgy venture.
Easing into traffic from a junction can be stressful for any sane person and I am imagining my very self to be one such person. There seems a rationale totally beyond my comprehension that prompts the Ghanaian motorist, who being a safe distance away from a junction, would instinctively speed up to it just when a fellow road user (usually me) is about getting into the road from the junction. Commercial drivers do it, women, old and young do it. The younger women usually in sunglasses of amazing sizes and shapes, take on a stern, stiff posture that can only mean, “Don’t you even try”. The men in their starched chequered shirts, speaking on their BBs unceasingly and paying little attention to the traffic that is usually amassing behind them do it! And since we are to do as the Romans when in Rome, our guests seem to have caught the bug big time. Always and only when I am seen trying to get in the road from a junction. Many times when I notice the frantic efforts of a driver to stick the glue on me at a junction, I stop mid way to allow the vehicle to go by. As if by clockwork, the driver would stop and insist that I get in the road. Mmm unbelievable. 
Junction experiences are to die for, really. A driver comes by and rather than using the opportunity that presents itself to allow me to ease onto the road, keeps staring at me like, “eyes right” or left as it may be and all the while slowly passing by anyway, still staring. Or this; an angel actually slows down for me to enter the road and Smart Alek manoeuvres from behind to overtake the angel, making it impossible for me to take advantage of the rare thoughtfulness of a kindred spirit. And here’s another; I am waiting to join a road at a junction, another driver drives round my blind side and to add salt to injury (I have to say I have a dislike for this expression and its injurious effects) begins to urge me on to “go, go, go”. Now really, science has yet to endow me with the power to see through metal and humans. Little wonder the ingenious natives have found the perfect antidote – simply enter the road at top speed without a care. If you have the nerve which many of my compatriots seem to have, it works! Well, enough times otherwise it’s the expected – tyres screeching, tail lights popping out, bad-tempered invectives, and we all go our un-merry way.
Junction experiences are to die for, really. A driver comes by and rather than using the opportunity that presents itself to allow me to ease onto the road, keeps staring at me like, “eyes right” or left as it may be and all the while slowly passing by anyway, still staring. Or this; an angel actually slows down for me to enter the road and Smart Alek manoeuvres from behind to overtake the angel, making it impossible for me to take advantage of the rare thoughtfulness of a kindred spirit. And here’s another; I am waiting to join a road at a junction, another driver drives round my blind side and to add salt to injury (I have to say I have a dislike for this expression and its injurious effects) begins to urge me on to “go, go, go”. Now really, science has yet to endow me with the power to see through metal and humans. Little wonder the ingenious natives have found the perfect antidote – simply enter the road at top speed without a care. If you have the nerve which many of my compatriots seem to have, it works! Well, enough times otherwise it’s the expected – tyres screeching, tail lights popping out, bad-tempered invectives, and we all go our un-merry way.
So then most junctions seem to need the services of traffic wardens, whether or not they are blessed with working traffic lights and whether or not on a major road. In truth, traffic lights seem to have lost their touch anyway. They neither get vehicles to stop nor do they make them move on. When the lights turn red, the stream of cars keep moving and sometimes never stop till the lights turn green again for the same side. Traffic wardens sometimes have to place themselves in front of moving vehicles to force them to stop. On the other hand some drivers take their naps at the traffic light. When it’s time to move, it’s another few minutes before they move.
A quick note about traffic wardens; they come in different shades- luminous green or yellow vested ones whose credentials as traffic managers are questionable; our usual uniformed compatriots and their yellow shirted assistants, whose job descriptions are unstable but much clearer in places where troskies abound, and then the others wielding palm branches who have the keenest sense and capacity for street chaos management. I prefer the latter for obvious reasons.
The situation makes me think the traffic warden’s job is one to watch on the job market; deadly but rewarding. Plus we make some savings on traffic light installations and improve unemployment figures simultaneously perhaps? Just saying.
interesting
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