Dear Editor,
A cautionary note is helpful as I share on traffic. All laws and rules are dumped into the garbage can. Most Guyanese have done so. Frequently, I am ready to say all Guyanese, so prevalent are the departures from the rules, dismissals of them, and making up of new ones by citizens to suit themselves on congested roadways. The violators include officials who know better, citizens who make their own rules.
Roads are wet, streets are crowded, but most road users jockey to get in front of the next one, by any foul means. There are no off-peak hours anymore, all day is rush hour. Side streets are no longer a wise exit strategy since they are all clogged. Rather than take foot off the gas, Guyanese prefer a heavy hand on horns. This is the local road dictatorship that runs riot. It confirms our shrinking brain capacity. Put the finger at whatever pleases, such as politics potholed and perverse; leaders, the worst examples anywhere; and, of course, oil, that ambrosia of hogs, idiots, dumbos, illiterates, the hurry-up to get rich crowd, and those endless assortments of Guyanese masquerading as road users.
If our road habits were the barometer employed to measure our civilization, it would be prehistoric. If for our culture, it would be that Guyana’s is that of beasts. And if for our sense of serenity, then the result would be Bethlehem. Lest anyone gets carried away with Biblical images of mangers, and goodwill, because it is almost December, I urge rethinking. Bethlehem was the official name of a madhouse in merry England, and from which bedlam became the local linguistic disfigurement. Bedlam (not Bethlehem) perfectly describes the cacophony, crimes, and caustic language that are part of the daily fare in oil-greased Guyana. Imagine if we had found uranium! We would be so full of ourselves that we would likely have blown ourselves up from the nuclear fallouts.
The majority of drivers, a bundle of pedestrians, and the usual crew of jaywalkers, sleepwalkers, and street walkers, plus those victimized by Johnnie Walker (some sleazy stepson of his), all decided to take the law into their hands and make it their toy. This has nothing to do with Christmas, but is a year-round pastime. Errant drivers ignore laws, rules, regulations (cops also); curse the clumsy and slow to react (red lights changing, major roads); park anywhere (especially prohibited areas); and have fun doing all these self-serving traffic things, plus the endless list of lawlessness, disorderliness, and dreadfulness I left out, due to respect for children, dogs, and the handful of honest hearts still toiling here.
In this matter of honesty, there are five sections presented to emphasize road realities in Guyana, and how officials and peasants (citizens) all engage in their little traffic tricks. First, observe who are the readymade lawbreakers. Start with the highly regarded Guyana Police Force. Note how almost all (maybe all) policemen and women have tinted vehicles. Bajan songstress, Wendy Alleyne crooned one in the 1970s titled “Midnight Blue”, which should relay how their vehicles are visually impenetrable from the outside. If our officers of the law (and traffic) are so schooled, cultured, and condoned, then there is not much to be expected from ordinary citizens.
Second, we are already horn happy, now we have progressed to siren serenaders, or as I prefer siren silly, if not stupid. Officials turn on sirens for anything and everything, including getting out of snarled traffic situations. Get a load of this one. A Fire Service vehicle charged through bottlenecked traffic, only for the occupant of a vehicle that found enough inches to give way to come across the Fire Service staff leisurely disembarking by the Cornhill Street station with a stretch, yawn, and chuckle. There was no emergency call to go to and attend. Sirens are one big, overused hummingbird symphony and racket. Third, what’s up with these private security police proxies (no politics today) and their swaggering presence. Their siren use is a problem, but a bigger one is how do law abiding civilians differentiate who is police, and who is teef? I just remembered a fourth traffic scenario, one not reflecting sweetly on honest ranks. Follow this.
A driver is pulled over in front of the burned down precinct by a uniformed roadside rank for no seatbelt. For this ticket eligible violation, he is sent into the Brickdam Station. After the usual hemming and hawing, the driver is dismissed, and threats about court disappear. The price was $2,000 Guyanese, not US, dollars. I hope that the CoP (ag), the Hon. Minister, and the PS, are all reading this, or being informed accordingly. This was not in some remote border community, but at Central Brickdam. This is the kind of traffic game being played, with rules manufactured, and court assembled. Fifth, it is a good development to have ranks on the roads, but they must not be on their cellphones, unless calling base command. Given this is the police, is it any wonder that Guyanese carry on like Attila the Hun, Alaric the Visigoth, and Genghis Khan’s Golden Horde? That is, in the daily warfare that is traffic conditions and practices in Guyana.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall