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About 100m away from a pedestrian crossing, what is popularly known as zebra crossing, an elderly woman with three young children, try to cross a main road. Watching her spend some few minutes in the scorching sun and trying to cross the road without success, I offered to help by drawing her attention to the zebra crossing, which is the safer and convenient area to cross the road only a few metres away. �Sa ade no edaso ye edwuma? Ye gyina ho saa obia gyina enti na ye pe se ye etwa kwan no mu wo ha no�. To wit, does this thing still work? We�ve spent quite some time trying to cross but no one stopped so we decided to try somewhere else. And in no time, she gets the three children to hold each others hands and as the traffic slowed down, they dashed off. Apart from the fact that she had lost faith in the security of the zebra crossing, it was obvious that the three children she was with would not act or think differently as they grow up. Unfortunately, that is the stark truth. As a pedestrian, using a pedestrian or zebra crossing for one�s safety in most cities in Ghana today is as frustrating as someone with bad eyesight trying to get a thread through a needle. Even though that is the place on the stretch of road clearly marked as the safe area for one to cross the road from one side to the other, drivers have made it the most unfriendly area for pedestrians. Road safety statistics indicate that about 43 per cent of road accident victims are pedestrians. Even that only represents cases that are reported to the police. The hit and run incidents are barely counted. Safe place or just a farce? The first pedestrian crossing signal was erected in Bridge Street, Westminster, London in December 1868. It was the idea of John Peak Knight, a railway engineer, who thought that it would safely allow pedestrians to cross that busy thoroughfare. Over the years, it has become obvious that unless such crossing is regulated by a traffic light or the red alerting flags, pedestrians will spend so much time trying to cross the street. Drivers blatantly ignore the presence of pedestrians at the edge of the crossing and would not stop unless they are caught in traffic. Even for those who are caught in traffic, refuse to stop behind the lines as required by the traffic rules and would rather stop right on the crossing, forcing most pedestrians to manoeuvre their way through. This unfortunate incident has put many people off using the pedestrian crossing and seemingly making the crossing irrelevant now. More disturbing, some pedestrians who have opted to use the zebra crossing have often met their untimely death because drivers had been impatient and hit them on the crossing. Nii Okai Mensah, a 20-year-old man said he hardly used the zebra crossing because one tended to spend much more time at such crossing. � I�ve tried a couple of times to use the crossing but drivers will hardly stop for us, unless we have the red flags as it is provided at crossings close to schools or unless it is regulated by a traffic light. However, when I have to cross the road, I do so when it is safe without necessarily using the crossing,� he said. Maame Mansa, a middle-aged woman at Odorkor in Accra, told this paper that much as she would have liked to use the zebra crossing, she has witnessed one or two accidents that had deterred her from doing so. � Just last week, a young girl met her untimely death as she tried to use the zebra crossing. A vehicle had stopped for her to cross but another driver who, perhaps was in a hurry to get to his destination and did not understand why the one ahead of him had stopped, tried to overtake on the crossing and unfortunately hit the little girl, killing her instantly. � Another time, a motor cyclist hit an elderly man as he tried to cross the road. The cyclist, as has been the habit, instead of slowing down on the crossing just moved without watching and ran into the man. Now I don�t know whether it�s safe or not to use the crossing.� When he was reminded that at least one is likely to get the law on his or her side should he or she be hit by a driver on a crossing, Auntie Mansa replied : � That is no guarantee. There are several incidents that happened right under the nose of the police and nothing happened. Have you ever heard of a driver being taken to court for refusing to stop for pedestrians to use the crossing? � And in cases where there are deaths, the drivers are charged with negligent and careless driving and may be jailed but that would be no compensation for the victim�s family. So now, I think one has to use his or her judgement when crossing the road. Our safety so far as crossing the road is concerned is in own hands and not the crossing.� A headteacher of a school on the Adentan main road said the school had had to recruit the services of a security person to help the schoolchildren cross safely as drivers had in the past refused to stop. � We always advise the children to use the pedestrian crossing but they lost faith in that as they had to spend so much time to do that. So we had to come up with a solution and which was to employ someone to control it. � At the moment, the security person uses the two main colours, green and red to regulate their crossing. Thankfully, the construction of the dual carriage and the pedestrian bridge will help resolve this issue but it had been a big problem in the past.� The main road in front of the Graphic Communications Group offices in Accra is yet another place where drivers show so much disregard for the crossing. It is always a hassle to cross from one end to the other. One could spend more than five to 10 minutes just to cross the road safely.One is usually compelled to force their way through, instead of waiting for the vehicles to stop for them to cross. Mr Kofi Oduro Mensah, who lives at Abeka, blamed the lack of respect for the crossing on ignorance and impatience on the part of drivers. � In the past, driving was the preserve of the middle and working class. People were more cautious and had respect for other road users. That isn�t the case anymore. Anyone at all can have access to a driving license and therefore can drive. �Once they get on the roads, they are eager to beat the traffic and get to their destinations so much so that they do not regard the safety of the other users. What is even worrying is when drivers become abusive towards those who try to cross.�