As a former British colony, Ghana began its independent life in 1957 with a traffic rule that nominally required vehicles to drive on the left hand side. However, all the countries bordering Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Togo and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), having been French colonies, drove on the right. Some advantages could be gained at border crossings by adopting a common system and it was also noted that in Ghana taxis, which made up about half of road traffic, seemed to prefer to drive on the right. So, the National Redemption Council (NRC) government of General Ignatius Kutu Acheampong decided to change the rules of the road and designated August 4, 1974 as the fateful day.
Long and costly preparations were carried out over several months in early 1974. Many traffic signals and traffic control systems, including extensive road markings, had to be changed. The motoring public needed to be re-educated about the procedures to follow at roundabouts, circles, and other highway intersections. Legislation was enacted to ban the importation of right-hand drive vehicles. Pedestrians needed to be warned to look the other way when crossing the street to avoid the fate of Winston Churchill in New York in December 1931.
These preparations culminated in Kumasi with a special right-hand driving practice session, ordered by Kumasi City Council President ‘Mad’ Major Cobbinah, on a Saturday morning about a week before the official change. This event might have been more useful, or at least less dangerous, if it had been widely announced in advance. Thus, the vehicles that entered the city from the suburbs, driving on the left, collided head-on with those that left the city and practiced driving on the right.
Eventually August 4th came around and most drivers shifted quickly and permanently to the right. It was hoped that a uniform driving practice could now be established not only in Ghana but in a large part of West Africa. Unfortunately, however, it seemed that many taxi drivers realized that they really did prefer the left side of the road after all. He soon realized that what determined the taxi drivers’ preference was not the rule of the road, but their perception of which side of the road had fewer or fewer potholes; and just as the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, the surface is always smoother on the other side of the road.