Africa-Press – Uganda. The Uganda National Road Authority (Unra) has introduced a new flashing amber signal on traffic lights at night in an effort to allow drivers during late night hours to drive through traffic light points.
According to Unra, the new set of traffic lights was introduced to protect drivers from robbers who target cars at intersections.
Unra said the amber flashing lights will operate from 10pm at all roundabouts.
Speaking to this publication, Mr Ronald Mugisha, the head of construction and supervision at Unra, said previously they have been using red, green and orange as traffic light colours.
However, Unra has since last month introduced the orange/yellow flashing amber colour, to allow drivers go through intersections without stopping.
But they must proceed with caution.
“There have been reports of people being robbed at traffic lights. Robbers know that when motorists are at traffic lights, it’s most likely that they will wait for like between two to three minutes before they move,” Mr Mugisha said last Thursday.
Adding: “The reason we have introduced the amber flashing light is to ensure that drivers while at the traffic light can assess and at the same time consider safety.”
Mr Mugisha further said there is an ongoing debate on whether the flashing time should be earlier than 10pm or probably after midnight.
Unra also revealed that there are plans to install lighting around Kampala’s Northern Bypass.
Statistics from Unra show that the whole of Uganda has 180 roundabouts with only seven of them signalised with traffic lights in Kampala.
Some of the roundabouts on the bypass with traffic lights include Namungoona, Bombo Road, Kalerwe, Kyebando, Naalya, Kisaasi-Ntinda and Naalya.
According to PTV Group, a company that owns software used to assess the timings of traffic flow at interchanges, Uganda is ranked as the country with the most aggressive drivers in Africa.
Mr Raymond Kiyaga, the highway engineer at Unra, said this is an indication that Ugandan drivers have an aggressive factor of one second when traffic lights change especially to green.
“In other countries, they use three seconds to react to the red colour. When it switches to green, Ugandans react by driving off within one second,” Mr Kiyaga said.
Motorists led by Mr Amos Katende have lauded the move.
Mr Katende, who plies the Northern By-pass route, said:” We would have at least two accidents every day at the roundabouts. For two months since the traffic lights were installed, we have not registered any accidents at the bypass.”
Mr Arnold Matovu, who operates in Kisasi, Ntinda and Naalya , said: “We are only experiencing delays at the roundabout because at around 11pm, the lights tend to flash the orange colour for long.
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