Streetlights are very important to people who drive at night
There are thousands of roads in Ghana without lights making driving or traveling at night very dangerous because one cannot see far and foresee changes in situations.
Many drivers believe that it is easier to drive at night since the density of traffic is very low, enabling them to drive fast and calm but there are a lot of factors that create difficulties during night driving. This is one of the reasons there are many road accidents in Ghana.
Apart from bad roads, many vehicles on Ghanaian roads are not road-worthy and the lack of proper road maintenance poses a threat to the lives of thousands of motorists, using Ghanaian roads.
In Ghana, the driving license unit in Accra, is the only recognized institution that conducts thorough examination on vehicles, for example, the lights, indicators, headlights, and backlights, before the roadworthy certificate is issued but one of the most important things, which is the adjustment of headlights to the right level is not an important issue.
Many European drivers fail a vehicle examination or control test because of poor adjustment of headlights. Since the headlights are not adjusted to the right level, it creates difficulties for motorists.
A badly adjusted headlight shines directly into the eyes of the oncoming traffic, causing partial blindness which often leads to several road accidents in Ghana.
A powerful beam of light blinds the driver, both oncoming and in front of the vehicle. This means that for a while the driver will find difficulty in seeing the road and if the motorist is inexperienced, he can easily drive to the wrong side of the road or can lead to a head-on collision.
In Africa, including Ghana, since the maintaining of road safety to European or modern standards involves financial matters; no government is willing to invest money into such costly projects.
It’s shocking to see many roads in Ghana throughout the regions have no street lights. The result is deaths on our roads today.
According to the Ghana media, the country spends up to $230 million every year treating injuries and traffic fatalities and the situation is getting worse, since there is fewer than 80 orthopedics in the country, limiting access to emergency treatment.
This is very serious, therefore, the Ghanaian government must consider building safer roads in the country by providing street lights to reduce the number of road accidents on the streets.
