Dear Editor,
I would like to extend my deepest sympathy to the relatives of the five persons who died in the tragic accident at Land of Canaan on Sunday. I also hope that the injured girl would be well again soon.
I live on the East Bank Demerara and I have been using the East Bank public road almost on a daily basis.
Over the years, it has become a real challenge to drive on this road, because I have to look out for errant drivers, horse-drawn carts, pedestrians – in particular those wearing dark clothing – bicycles without reflectors or lights, cows, horses, donkeys, goats sheep and dogs. Speeding, particularly by mini-buses, is a daily occurrence; this is in spite of the presence of the traffic police.
At nights it is a nightmare. Large forty-foot container trucks, scrap-metal trucks, logging trucks, longer than ordinary lumber trucks (twin axle at front and back), tractor and trailers with loads unsecured on their trailers can be encountered. Very often the size of the approaching vehicle is known to be a large truck only when it reaches about ten metres away. Why? Because only one headlamp is working .This already dangerous situation is aggravated by the unlighted road.
I cannot understand why this essential road, which is the main roadway to the city, is not lighted like the East Coast public road.
I have also observed that the East Bank road is eroding, and is sinking opposite GT&T New Hope exchange as well as in the area where the unsecured transformers slid off the truck at Friend-ship. At high tide the river is at the edge of the road.
It is my hope that immediate action would be taken by the relevant authority before we lose more of our needed citizens, and avoid having to fix the sinking road after it is consumed by the Demerara River. Delays in fixing the sinking road would result in very high cost to fix it.
Why do we always wait for a calamity, instead of working to prevent it?
Yours faithfully,
K C Bishop
