My Experience at the Lights by Paul Chika Emekwulu

It happened on Sunday evening of September 13, 2020. We were three in the car driving very late to a meeting having left family meeting taking place at a home near Agụata High School.. We drove to one of the four traffic lights installed in my town, Ekwulọbịa. We stopped because the light was red. Of course, that’s the law, no choice.

Immediately other drivers behind me became not only uncomfortable but very uncomfortable. It was expected because it had happened before not once, not even just twice but several times.

All the motorcyclists were yelling at me saying “move.” I said:

“No, I’m not moving.”

I brought my left hand out of the window and raised it in the air pointing in the direction of the lights to signify the presence of red lights. I had no support.

It got so bad that I had to get out of the car to let people know that the light was red and it had to be obeyed. My plea was falling on deaf ears. Some of the drivers behind me started passing through the red light.

It was at this point that I realized that I was fighting a lost battle because almost everybody was against me. Even one of my passengers advised me to join the bandwagon, that everybody is doing it. I objected.

As we were coming back, this time along Isuọfịa road we got to the traffic lights (near the round about) and stopped because as usual the lights were red at that particular moment, and as usual you have to stop. (The law didn’t say otherwise.)

The reaction from the public for whom the traffic lights were installed was not different. From a short distance someone shouted:

“Move, they are not here.”

He was referring to the traffic wardens. When the traffic wardens are checking compliance we have to obey the law, but when they aren’t there we can drive through the red lights. That is not a good message.

My question is:

When has that become a law in Nigeria?

We have to be aware of one thing. What the majority (the public) has is power, and not necessarily reason.

The impression is that everybody is doing it, and that is not the right way to think in this particular case. That everybody is doing it doesn’t make it right.

The goal of traffic lights wherever they are found anywhere in the world is public safety.

It doesn’t matter whether it is in developed countries or not, the goal is the same. If the goal is the same, then why should the ones installed in my hometown be different?

Why should passersby, motorists, and ‘okada’ motorcyclists that congest around these lights encourage drivers to disobey the law by running the red lights?

I am hell bent on being obedient at the lights not because I want to sell my handbook on road safety that I am writing, not even because of fear of possible or unpaid traffic ticket, but because the right thing to do is still the right thing to do.

The right thing to do is not to disobey the law, and not disobeying the law in this case is not to run the red light.