Rain in Accra, and what it does to getting a car

Everyone who has tried to get home during a heavy Accra downpour knows the feeling. Suddenly nobody is walking, nobody is taking a motorbike, and everybody wants a car at the same minute.

It is worth understanding what is actually happening, because it changes what you should do.

Two things happen at once

Demand rises sharply, because people who would have walked or taken an okada now want an enclosed vehicle. And effective supply falls, because traffic slows, so each driver completes fewer trips per hour and takes longer to reach any pickup.

The result is not a small squeeze. It is the sharpest imbalance the network experiences.

What that means for you

Book before it starts, if you can see it coming. Ten minutes ahead of the rain is a different market from ten minutes into it.

If you are already caught, wait somewhere sheltered rather than standing at a kerb watching. A driver ten minutes away is still ten minutes away whether you are getting wet or not, and shelter improves your decision-making considerably.

Okada is the wrong answer here

It should not need saying, but in heavy rain a motorbike is not the option to choose, however tempting the wait time looks. That is also why car demand spikes: the people who would normally take a bike are now in the same queue as you.

Pickup points matter more

In rain, a pickup point that requires a driver to find you on a flooded roadside is worse for everyone. Choose somewhere a car can genuinely stop, drag the pin there, and write the note. "Under the covered entrance" is a sentence worth typing.

For drivers

Rain is busy but slow, and the trap is accepting a long approach because the fare looks good. In heavy traffic that approach may take three times its usual duration. Judge the approach by the conditions rather than the map.

Also: this is the moment where a courteous, safe trip earns a rider for life. People remember who got them home in a storm.