Animal-drawn carts should not be allowed on our roads

Dear Editor,

We are all aware of the ever increasing congestion on our roads, particularly with regard to access to, and around Georgetown. I would therefore like to offer the following suggestions to bring some measure of relief to road users, and further enhance our environment.

  1. Enact legislation that will remove all animal-drawn carts from our roads by January 2016. I am not aware of a single other country in the Caribbean where a similar situation exists.
  2. Concomitant with the above, strengthen the laws aimed at the removal of all stray/untethered animals from our roads and parapets, a real and present danger, causing significant damage to vehicles, and property, compounded at night by our non-existent or poor street lighting.
  3. Prohibit the use of tractors and trailers for the transporting of building materials and like loads, on our major roads and harbour bridges. Confine them to the farming areas.
  4. Institute laws to prevent the overloading of trucks, by the building up of the tray walls; the excessive concentrated loads are causing untold damage to our roads.

There is a lot to be done to take our environment, cities towns and villages, into the 21st century; however the current clean-up exercise is showing remarkable results, and what can be achieved by will and commitment. Cleaning up our roads and traffic will take it even further.

 

Yours faithfully,

Thomas Pinkerton