There is a certain sound that cuts through Ghana’s major cities’ traffic faster than any horn. I am talking about that loud ‘wiiiii-oow, wiiiii-oow, wiiiii-oow sound that comes with red, blue and white flash lights. Those strobe lights that bounce off car windows, side mirrors, shop fronts and so on.
Once upon a time, that system was designed to clear the way for life-saving response from ambulances, fire tenders, police on emergency duty; with a simple idea for other road users to move aside, because someone’s life depends on it. Now, it has been thrown to the dogs.
Welcome to Ghana, the new siren nation. A nation where the section of the population that can afford expensive vehicles like the V8s, also choose to disturb other citizens with unauthorised sirens and strobe lights as if the world is about to end. For them, that is the real flex!
Sirens have become the new status symbol in Ghana. Due to that, some people have suddenly become important, not by what they do for Ghana, or by who they are in society, but by how loud they can be on the road. They make people who wake up early to beat the rush hour traffic, miss their beds and hate the traffic even more.
They call it “big manism” or “big womanism”, and it is easy to acquire, once you have the requisite funds. Here’s how it is done. Step one, buy an expensive vehicle. Step two, go to either Abossey Okai, Kokompe, Suame magazine, your favourite mechanic shop, etc and fix a siren and strobe light. Step three, assume powers you were never given by the Constitution and common sense and feel cool.
By doing these, we have suceeded in confusing volume with value. We have taught ourselves, including children that to be respected, you must first terrify people.
We have turned our streets into daily episodes of a choatic traffic reality show. Once you step out of your house, it is assumed that you have signed artiste release forms to be a character in the show.
We have raised traffic bullies per our own action, who now think they are bigger than the law.
Sirens are supposed to signal emergencies. Sirens are meant for fire, for blood, for life and death. They are not for “I’m running late to a meeting scheduled for 8:30 am but I woke up at 8:20 am and I cannot meander through the maze of traffic”. Niether are they for “I for make fast before the kooko, waakye or aponkye nkrakra go finish.”
What was once a signal of distress has become a signal of status. So, while sirens and strobe lights are not supposed to be a problem, the real problem is that not every siren and flashing light means emergency and authority. The urgency enshrined in the law, has been converted into noise while we all looked on, applauded and nodded in agreement.
People have become self-taught engineers of din overnight. Their new job discription is to disturb the peace and quiet of the town. How do they do it? If they are running late, because they overslept and the traffic has become thick, they don’t stress, they just press a button to part it like biblical Moses at the red sea.
They don’t care if five thousand other road users are having a normal day or a hard time? Their discomfort is the price to pay for the unauthorised siren user’s lack of a sense of punctuality.
They cause fear and panic. They create inconvenience. They have no sense of respect for real urgencies.
A wise man once said, when everything is an emergency, nothing actually is. In other words, when everyone has a siren, no one listens to or gives way to a siren. This means that the actual emergencies will be stuck behind traffic because nobody believes the siren’s sound anymore.
It also means that we are perfecting the art and science of ignoring every signal to save lives. Drivers will panic, peace of mind will be disturbed, focus will be shifted, lives and properties will be lost, etc. That is an unfortunate combination of noise pollution, high risk and grave danger.
Like it or not, the truth is that an ambulance carrying a patient needing critical care and a V8 taking a Chief or politician to a durbar or party, with some jollof and other refreshments in the boot, now have the same sound. Guess which one gets out of the way first?
Thanks to ACP Alex Kwaku Obeng and his team at the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD), we are making a u-turn to sanity. Efforts have been intensified to rid the nation of this nuisance.
In the month of June 2026 alone, over two thousand vehicles were impounded nationwide and their illegal strobe lights and sirens were siezed without fear or favour.
Offenders will face the law. For me, that is a harvest beyond a crackdown.
Flowing from the enforcement action by the police, two other things must obtain. The first is common sense. Citizens must follow the lead of individuals like Jonathan Syme and stop giving way to vanity, ego, ‘ahomasuor-cracy’ and ‘akata-cracy’.
Let us all resolve to use the siren only when it matters. Let us have it in mind that by reporting the wrongful use of a siren, you are not hating anybody rather, you are being responsible to make society better.
The second thing is accountability. It is expected of authorised siren users to recognise their unique place in society and to have regard for discretion. If they don’t need the siren, they don’t have to use it.
Afterall, status is not an emergency and vice versa. Admirably, I have seen official vehicles of top ranking service men and women, who have permission to use sirens because they have flags flying on their bonnets, obeying traffic rules with dignity.
The final honk for us as a country, is to choose whether we want roads or runways? Whether we want peace or panic? Whether we want leaders, loud speakers or noise makers? I ask these questions because, right now, the only thing moving faster than these sirens and strobe lights is our collective dignity going out of the window, straight into the mud.
Can we all agree to enjoy silence in peace by doing away with the nuisance?
For instance, in the area of traffic chaos, we don’t need our drivers to panic, swerve, or freeze because an unauthorised siren has created more confusion instead of simply clearing the road. The experts tell me that in an actual emergency, those few seconds of hesitation can cost lives.
In addition, noise pollution doesn’t just move cars to pull over. It disturbs everyone. If we really care about mental health and its connection to productivity and child development, we will move with the speed of light to reverse the trend.
Unauthorised sirens and strobe lights also present a security risk. Flashing lights are supposed to mean official business. We are now at the point where anyone can buy and mount them. What that means is, it becomes easier for criminals to impersonate authority.
Surprisingly, these sirens and strobe lights are not manufactured here. They are imported. Here are a few outstanding questions. Who imports the sirens and strobe lights? Who clears them at the port? How do they get into the market?
Does the Ghana Revenue Authority care to ask these questions before they move to collect taxes from such shops? Has the Police Criminal Investigative Department, BNI and National Security bothered to ask their men and women at the ports and entry points how these things slip in, while they are on duty 24/7?
Ghana’s Road Traffic Regulations are clear. Particularly, regulation 74 of L.I. 2180 (2012) restricts the use of sirens and flashing lights to emergency and security vehicles only. Private use is illegal.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and Police MTTD are mandated to enforce this. Yet on our roads, enforcement is patchy and the culture persists and loudly suggests that “If I have influence, I can have a siren and no questions will be asked.”
By disobeying the laws flagrantly and walking away freely, we lose respect for urgency. We teach young drivers that power means cutting the queue. We teach the public that emergency signals are optional and not mandatory.
Going forward, the lawful authorities must be consistent in enforcement (including spot fines, community service, some form of ban from driving and so on and heightened public education. People must be made to feel the consequences of their actions.
Citizens must also report misuse and insist on giving way to emergencies only. We ought to always remember that roads are shared spaces so, one road user’s convenience shouldn’t override someone else’s. We have a duty to reclaim that purpose. Until we do that, we will keep paying the price in noise, in risk, and in lost time.
A siren should make you pull over because someone is dying or is in crisis or something requires urgent attention. Not because someone is late so all others must wait!
By Johnnie Hughes
