Dear Editor,
“Over the years and during my membership of the Consumer Movement of Guyana (CMOG) I have written a number of articles on the deteriorating road transportation environment and made oral and other submissions to the powers that be.
“A few days ago I happened to glance at a discarded Stabroek News headline and discerned the word carnage. On examining the paper closer (13th October, 2006) it read ‘Police announce rack of measures to curb road carnage.’ The article stated – ‘With the road death figure at 109 so far this year (2006) and calls from all sectors of society for more care among road users particularly those in the public transport system the Police Traffic Department has announced a rack of measures aimed at curbing the carnage on the roads.’ The article went on to state that there were 141 deaths for the corresponding period up to 13th October last year 2005.
“One year and almost two weeks later on 25th October 2007 the Stabroek News headlines stated ‘Time for action – Green, new traffic fines from November 1, 2007.’ This ‘Time for Acton’ came after there were 177 road fatalities which figure was reached sometime between 13th and 22nd October 2007. Since the mean between 109 fatalities by October 2006 and 141 fatalities in 2005 is 125 what was the number of fatalities which was sardonically considered by the authorities as an acceptable level of road carnage up to the corresponding period in the year 2007? Was it 177, that is 52 fatalities more than the average of 125 in the preceding two years up to 2006 and 2005? And where does the buck stop, when did the alarm bells start to ring and who is responsible for this gross dereliction of much earlier concern?”
Sounds familiar?
The foregoing is an extract from a very long letter published in SN, December 2, 2007 from Aubrey Alexander. What Aubrey didn’t know was that I had prepared a brief since November 1999, which read partly as follows:
“Increasingly over recent years the twin problem of traffic control and transportation management has been identified as one that impacts on the life of every adult or child who is required to utilise the nation’s roads.
“With the tremendous and continuing increase in the volume of traffic on virtually the same mileage of roadways over the last 10 years say, the prospect of death or serious injury by vehicular accident becomes more certain. The impact on the quality of life is fearsomely negative. The accident rate per road mile continues to raise alarm amongst all concerned citizens. Much of their efforts however have been limited to exhorting commuters to do and behave better. Little in fact has been done to curb the rampant violation of traffic laws and decimation of lives and limbs. Amidst the exhortations by some therefore, copious tears are being shed by others.
“The fact is that there appears to be no coherent plan of action to deal with a problem that can only worsen. One reason for the non-existence of a plan is the lack of any articulated vision of the future physical development of, for example, Greater Georgetown, its environs and its road linkages.
“There can be little argument that a transport plan for Guyana is an urgent priority. While many concerned groups, individuals and institutions have voiced their anxieties from time to time, it is now absolutely imperative that we have ready a coherent plan for the management of transportation in the next millennium.”
The above was part of the introduction to a proposal for convening a forum of all identified stakeholders to develop ‘A Strategic Plan for Road Communication Management and Control’ for the next millennium (we are already there).
The idea was to involve every conceivable stakeholder (ministries, NGOs, private sector, media) to comprehensively examine the related issues, make recommendations to be crystallised into a plan so viable that the authorities would consider it an offer they could not refuse.
My records show that the brief when discussed in November, 2000 with the then Minister of Home Affairs, he undertook to arrange a small committee to include the Traffic Chief and myself, amongst others, to explore some of its ideas. We corresponded into 2002 without any results. The correspondence was again taken up with the successor minister between 2006 and 2007, with the following suggestions for consideration:
a) drivers of public transport to be examined, (re)trained and certified by the Traffic Department as fit persons to undertake the safe transportation of passengers;
b) training to involve grounding in the traffic rules and regulations;
c) the erection of appropriate traffic signs (visible in the night) indicating, not only the speed limits for cars, buses and heavy articulated vehicles respectively, but also giving directions on safe driving (there are too few speed limit signs in Georgetown and environs, along the East Coast, West and East Berbice Public Roads). Overseas visitors do not normally expect to look for traffic signs painted on the ground. In any case non-luminous signs are not visible in the night, particularly where there is poor street lighting;
d) improve street lighting to facilitate visibility of both pedestrian and motor traffic signs;
e) ensure very visible identification in every public transport vehicle, of the driver, and the conductor, where applicable;
f) advocate the wearing of uniforms for drivers and conductors of passenger transport vehicles;
g) regularise police checks of drivers, conductors, as well as routine mechanical examination, including tyres;
h) control length of working hours for drivers of public transport – the current traffic laws refer to this so far as lorries/trucks are concerned.
Although the submission was accepted in principle, there was unfortunately no follow-up activity. Entered coincidentally Aubrey Alexander’s impassioned letter of December, 2007.
The latest foray was addressed to the National Road Safety Council in June this year. The exchange however hardly convinced of the body’s proactive interest in effecting its self-defined mandate.
Nor did it elicit reaction from any of the institutions to whom copies of my letter of June 24, 2010 were sent, including several representative private sector organisations, as well as the Guyana Medical Council.
Similarly contacted your own media have displayed little interest in the prevention of road deaths and injuries, while continuing to report them.
Equally disconcerting, however, is the palpable indifference to a problem that is already of crisis proportions, exhibited by those enterprises whose business requires them to expend so much financial resources, while relying on their trusted human resources, to move their consumerables around the country, without visible or audible reference to the risks to which their transporters and (vicariously) their families are exposed.
For instance it would be remarkable if two such large undertakings located along the East Bank ‘Highway’ did not at times feel anxiety about the resigned anguish of their commuting employees who report daily to work, already stressed out, and the possible implications for productivity. Yet there has been no public commentary on the increasing insanity of the traffic along a route which includes their customers in the toll of accidents.
Nor is the insurance community to be absolved. Their Barbados counterparts, some years ago, effectively put a stop to the wild behaviour of ‘minibus’ drivers by refusing to insure the vehicles, until the parties worked out a since honoured agreement setting out specific criteria for licensing and renewals. They were not prepared to be accessories before the fact of exposing the lives of children and adults on those relatively narrow roads to reckless public transporters.
Road risk management is a sufficiently neutral subject on which corporate social responsibility can be assertively expressed. No pedestrian, cyclist, motorist, commuter of any kind is immune from the attendant risks. Surely the daily letters to the press, of complaints, recommendations and proffered solutions must be indicative of how pervasively the current and earlier scenarios of carnage are felt throughout our communities.
For how much longer will we continue to explain to bereft parents, and more poignantly orphaned children, the avoidable and unnecessary departure of their loved ones?
It is the time and responsibility of all stakeholders to insist, in whatever form, that urgent action be taken to develop and implement a coherent plan to save ourselves from being mauled by fellow motorists.
The fact can hardly have escaped all parties that there has not been a single new mile of coastland highway over the past four decades, while the volume and types of vehicles have increased exponentially, as has the carnage.
While it is still the responsibility of the National Road Safety Council to be vanguard in this process, the private sector can make a worthwhile contribution to getting the ‘engine’ started.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
