This is the seventh entry in a series on the current state of civil society in Guyana.
After her 17-year-old daughter was killed by a drunk driver in 1996, Denise Dias began to look at road safety issues in Guyana and found there were no laws to cover the use of seat belts and breathalysers. Dias, who went on to found the Alicea Foundation and Mothers in Black, does not use the term ‘road accident’ for someone who dies by speeding or drunken driving. “Road safety is no accident. If you knock down somebody, that is not an accident. That is a crash. You don’t even hear the amount of crashes now. Even if the police say it is eight or ten a month it is double that,” she said.
At the time she didn’t realise that there weren’t many traffic laws in place to deal with errant drivers. “In the case of Alicea, we only had one court hearing because the young person who killed my daughter left the country illegally.”