Traffic Chief, Senior Superintendent Linden Alves’ revelation that up to this time in 2019 the number of deaths on our roads have been fewer than for the corresponding period last year (94 deaths so far this year as against 100 in 2018) fits into the Police Traffic Department’s well-worn habit of pressing numbers into service to disguise the truth about the overall state of affairs on our roads.
It is a practice that should cease not only because its repetitiveness has condemned it to predictable cynical public responses, but also because, even if we accept that those numbers afforded us by Mr. Isles are matters of fact, they are altogether irrelevant to the ‘bottom line’ as the state of affairs in our traffic management regime is concerned.
We must begin by conceding that insofar as there continues to be little if any correlation between the scale of our traffic management challenge and the remedial resources allocated thereto, the Police Traffic Department will continue to be on a hiding to nowhere. That, however, is not the whole story. For example, (and we have said so previously) the Guyana Police Force continues to shoot itself in the foot with its ‘bring us the evidence’ response to easily verifiable charges of corruption in traffic management. That denial of an irrefutable truth impedes remedial action. Arguably the biggest challenge to the creation of an enhanced traffic management regime comes from the pushback against effective enforcement from those who afford immunity from penalty in exchange for the kickbacks that they receive.
This is a bad time for traffic management and the police are directly in the line of fire. A speeding police vehicle is felt to have been the cause of the recent East Bank collision, the most devastating accident on our roads for the year so far. The East Bank tragedy has badly back-footed the Police Traffic Department so that Mr. Isles’ disclosure about marginally fewer deaths on our roads up to this time, compared with the same period last year comes across as clutching at proverbial straws.
So too, what appears to have been a hastily arranged recent seminar for police drivers and the admonition about speeding and the use of sirens, all of which amounts to a veiled and decidedly muted response to the East Bank tragedy. They add up to a sort of damage control exercise, albeit a feeble one.
Leaving aside the recent East Bank tragedy and its repercussions the evidence on the streets point to an aggressively stepped-up regimen of lawlessness on our roads, on the one hand and on the other, a seeming patent inability on the part of the Police Traffic Department to rein the lawlessness in. The primary manifestations of our worsening road use regime include the gradual growth in the number of reckless, helmetless bikers, who appear in a desperate hurry to go to their graves. It would, for example, do the image of traffic management a power of good if the Traffic Chief could afford us some credible evidence that this particular road use anomaly is being tackled seriously and that remedial efforts are bearing fruit.
No matter how peeved the administration of the Force becomes over charges of bribes and kickbacks ‘in traffic’ the issue is unlikely to go away. The reason? Corrupt traffic cops are believed to be among the key reasons why our traffic administration regime does not make a greater impact. Is Mr. Alves, for example, inclined to comment forthrightly on what is known to be the now ingrained culture of some traffic offenders, not least minibus drivers, routinely reaching out to their police contacts to seek let-offs from penalties associated with breaking one traffic rule or another; and is there an update on the extent to which the Police Traffic Department has been able to keep its promise to work with the local Minibus Association to rein in the excesses of some of the service providers in the sector?
And what about the regime of outrageous indiscipline which so clearly applies to the use of ‘tint’ on vehicles. Is the tint facility really granted, selectively, and then primarily for health-related reasons as advanced or else to public functionaries deemed to be entitled to security-related protection? Are vehicles owned by police functionaries entitled to the an open-ended tint prerogative or are there broader regulations that open tint to the wider public and then, only to the extent that it does not just act as a shade from glare and/or prying eyes rather than present a driving hazard by obscuring vision? A policy or lack thereof regarding the use of tint on vehicles is one of those grey areas on which there appears to be a decided lack of clarity. It is, moreover, one of those anomalous areas of traffic management which the Police Traffic Department has demonstrated no real willingness to clear up definitively.
With Christmas approaching Mr. Isles last week announced a slew of seasonal measures to meet the anticipated parking challenges including tow-away trucks for parking transgressions, greater oversight for drink and drive offences, speeding, use of cell phones behind the wheel, overloading and loud music in the instances of minibuses and hire cars and the use of blue headlights. There will also be an increase in car, motor cycle and foot patrols throughout the country, Mr. Isles says. The question that arises here, however, is whether these measures are not likely to be seriously hampered if they remain unattended by constraints that sabotage their very purpose…like the entrenched regimen of favours and kickbacks which are widely believed to be one of the more serious impediments to effective traffic management. Is the Traffic Chief not, in effect, shooting himself in the foot, unless he is prepared to grasp that nettle?
