Last week many Ghanaians were shocked to learn how the country loses billions of cedis worth of productive hours, as a result of bad roads and congestion in urban areas.

Seething anger at standstills is a common emotion felt by all drivers. The causes of traffic jams are well understood (poor infrastructure and ongoing construction works). 

Cost of waiting around

Dr. Jonathan Annan, a senior lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Business School says contitutes about 10.5% of the country's Gross Domestic Product while congestion on our roads constitutes 8.21% of GDP.

This cost comes from travel delays, increased impact to the environment, increased vehicle costs from travel delays, and increased chance of vehicle collisions.

In addition, when we are stuck in traffic and transit longer than we should be, there is less time for us to be doing something productive, resulting in a cost to the economy. 

Myjoyonline.com's Photo journalist, David Andoh took a trip to some traffic-prone areas of Accra including Tema Motorway roundabout where the traffic jam is so monsterous that commercial drivers are now avoiding to use .