Dear Editor,
Out of a group of discussants about the spate of road deaths across the country on almost a daily basis, there were at least three affected persons who spoke angrily about the residual indispositions – physical, financial, psychological – of those who are left to grieve.
One spoke not so much on bereavement, but of dismemberment of those who would have survived being overrun, and the drivers who too often escape sanction. “No one seems to care,” shouted another; “All you get are news headlines, some bigger than others, nothing more. Nobody asks about anything further. Not even the journalists who make the news.”
Hanging his head in obvious depression, a third spoke softly, deliberately trying to curb his frustration, “the thing is the hospital doctor is only too glad to discharge the battered patient. And the police wash their hands after that.”
“More than that,” was the limp rejoinder: “the errant driver is encouraged to make financial settlement. So nobody has to bother about court prosecution.”
As I overheard, I became distracted with recollections of earlier conversations with a colleague citizen who has more than a passing interest in traffic information in Guyana as well as the Caribbean.
He is fond of quoting comparable statistics on road deaths, and persistently tries to assuage other interested parties like me that the rate of deaths per hundred thousand has reduced in relation to the previous comparative period. It is a submission that only makes me ill-tempered, since all it seems to say is that road deaths are unavoidable. Perhaps only to those who have not experienced the trauma.
There is no question in my mind that a closer review of the incidents that result in endangering lives are by no means accidents – certainly not in Guyana. One doesn’t have to look far for the reasons, which in fact are reported daily in the press. They include amongst others:
a) poorly engineered (a euphemism) roads;
b) the patent absence, and invisibility, of effective traffic signage (most of which either float away with every inundation, and/or are hidden in the poor night lighting – a scenario without comparison in any other Caribbean town or village, for starters – such obduracy in the face of the increasing proportion of foreign residents (and invited visitors) in the country;
(Specifically search for any No Entry signage at the relevant junctures along Sheriff Street and Vlissingen Road respectively.)
c) the incomprehensible carelessness that allows all types, sizes and weights of vehicles to be driven at the same unspecified speeds, moreover for extended periods and distances – a situation which does not take account of the legal eligibility of the driver to manipulate the particular (lethal) vehicle;
d) the wanton issue of (highly priced) drivers’ licences to unvetted and untrained individuals, who learn absolutely nothing about a single traffic regulation. For example, as a traffic officer remarked in amazement to me on one occasion, that the driver behind me ‘undertake’ my vehicle on the left side as I slowed down at his signal (obviously one overtakes on the right side only).
Then there was this grey and emaciated septuagenarian who was clearly learning to drive – uncertainly, if not dangerously, propelling an insensitive taxi.
This unscrupulous sale of licences to public transport drivers who are clearly ineligible must make the relevant officials culpable for some of the mayhem which takes place on our roads. Arguably a process of legal action against the traffic managers (?) as accessories to this form of terminal negligence, should be actively explored.
e) In this connection we have a totally ineffective Road Safety Council. Ask them what was their reaction to a comprehensive draft programme I submitted to them for a three-day workshop at which all relevant stakeholders could be encouraged to develop a strategy for Road Traffic Management, at least for the next ten years.
Nobody seems to care about the increasing influx of vehicles crowding the same mileage of roads, and the same volume of parking space.
There is not a single developed parking lot, despite all the high-rise malls being indiscriminately erected.
In the meantime will the Commissioner of Police and his Traffic Chief respond to my letters of May 20 and June 8, 2014 asking that consideration be given to constructing speed humps at the intersection which leads in and out of Sophia, where even members of their own force ignore the Stop signs – at the daily peril of the numerous cyclists and pedestrians, including schoolchildren, particularly at peak hours.
When the predictable destruction occurs, this gross result of negligence will be misrepresented in the press as an ‘accident.’ However the maimed and the dead will be the only ones you can be certain would be ‘lying.’
Yours faithfully,
E B John
