Dear Editor,
The mayhem on our roads, like the violence and murders in our homes and the total lack of respect for our family, friends and neighbours, has become a virus!
Having lost my eldest daughter Alicea nigh on 17 years ago to an allegedly drunken, speeding driver, who, as is frequently the case, was never charged, tried and convicted; and having demonstrated along with hundreds of parents who have also lost loved ones, as well as concerned friends over many years to ensure traffic legislation was put in place, nothing has changed.
Nothing is enforced and respect for human life is zero. Shame on all of us. As a road safety advocate, I hear, read and witness heartbreaking instances of lives lost, and futures destroyed within seconds. Road deaths and casualties are accelerating beyond our speed limits.
We cannot leave matters to those who are supposedly ‘in control’ and ‘behind the wheel,’ so to speak. We as a nation must take off our eye masks and ear muffs and do something. Deaths and casualties on our roads and rivers are costing our country millions of dollars each year. All these deaths and injured victims in Guyana are 90% avoidable.
After all these years of losing our loved ones, and with the easy access to technology and new methodologies there is no excuse for us not having a proper computer database system in place. Our police are under-paid, and in urgent need of radar guns, breathalyzers and computers. Fines are too small (hence bribery and corruption continues).
Where judicial system backlogs are concerned, traffic deaths, collisions and domestic violence murders are not a priority. Death and murder on our roads, rivers, and in our homes are not important to our parliamentarians, businesses, and individual Guyanese. No one cares.
Education outside and inside our schools on road safety and domestic violence should become a number one priority.
There is little or no visibility of road safety patrols outside our schools, just as there is little funding to educate our people against domestic violence. Ministers of Education, Home Affairs, and Health, as well as the Police and the National Road Safety Council ‒ I and many other concerned citizens have stood beside you, worked with you for many years. One week or one month of activity cannot solve our problems. Are we so blind, we do not see or hear? The truth is that people are dying and many others are being maimed because as a country we have not been able to deal appropriately with these problems. Young adults and many others are buying their licences, driving as if there is no tomorrow, most without any idea of what road signs and traffic signals mean. These people have been licensed to kill!
Yours for the safety of our children,
Yours faithfully,
Denise Dias
Founder
The Alicea Foundation
