The Dark Zebra Crossing Behind a Stopped Tro-Tro
It is 18:40 and dark on a two-lane road in Kumasi. The street lights over the next 200 metres are out. The paint on the zebra crossing ahead is worn, but the blue pedestrian crossing sign is visible. A tro-tro has stopped on your side about three metres before the crossing to drop passengers, and four of them are already walking across in front of it - hidden from your view until they clear its bonnet. A taxi behind you pulls out to the left and begins to overtake you and the tro-tro. Your headlights are on main beam. A second group of passengers is still getting out of the tro-tro.
1. Should you follow the taxi and pass the stopped tro-tro? Explain.
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No. A vehicle stopped at or just before a pedestrian crossing should be read as a warning, not an obstacle: it is almost certainly stopping because people are on the crossing, and it is hiding them from you. Anyone who overtakes it is driving blind into the space where pedestrians are walking.
You also have no idea what the taxi driver can see, and its position now blocks your view of the crossing even further. If you follow, you inherit its blind spot at speed and you will be in the opposing lane exactly where a passenger may step out.
So: stop before the crossing, in a position that does not block it, and wait. The taxi's decision is the taxi's risk; it is not evidence that the way is clear, and it does not transfer any responsibility away from you.
2. What do you do with your lights, speed and road position in the last 50 metres?
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Dip the headlights from main beam well before the crossing. On main beam you dazzle the passengers and the tro-tro driver, and the bright pool of light washes out the pedestrians you are trying to see. Dipped beam, or main beam flicked down as soon as anyone appears, is the correct choice.
Reduce speed early so that you could stop within the distance you can actually see, and cover the brake - foot off the accelerator, hovering over the pedal - so reaction time is cut. Look under and around the tro-tro's body, not just past its windows, because a small child may be hidden below the window line.
Hold a position that gives you the widest view around the tro-tro without crossing into the opposing lane. Sounding the horn is not a substitute for slowing; a short warning note is only appropriate if someone is actually stepping into your path.
3. The second group is still getting out and the taxi is now halfway past. What now?
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Stay stopped. The taxi being alongside changes nothing about the pedestrians, and it now blocks the lane that would otherwise be your escape route, so moving forward would put you between a stopped vehicle and a moving one with people on foot in between.
Expect a passenger to step out from behind the taxi or the tro-tro without looking - that is exactly the pattern this situation produces. Keep your foot on the brake so your brake lights are showing, and keep watching the doors of the tro-tro rather than the taxi.
Proceed only when the crossing is clear and the second group has reached the far kerb, then move off slowly. If someone steps out unexpectedly, stop and wait; do not steer around them into the path of the taxi or of oncoming traffic.