Dear Editor,
Permit me to share a simple traffic development that harbours much that is troubling for this society. There is a vehicular difference between two drivers. Nothing serious, no one is scratched. But everything comes to an abrupt stop. There is no movement, and the line behind snakes endlessly into the distance. It is about 09:00hrs on a workday, the rush hour in unrelenting waves. Somehow a law enforcement officer is around, and it takes some cajoling to get one driver out of his machine. Another driver comes out of his vehicle and implores the policeman that it is better to clear the way, so that others could proceed on their way. One of the involved drivers would have none of that, with the repeated retort that ‘the officer is handling the matter.’ The policeman was able to influence the movement of the two drivers and their vehicles to some less crowded area. Traffic flow resumed its crawl.
For all these reasons and much more left out, those on the ‘right side’ of an accident want matters to be settled right there and then at the scene of an accident. I think that the Guyana Police Force, as admittedly overburdened as it is, has to be involved. Further, depending on the authenticity of road documents tendered, drivers operating illegally (license, fitness, insurance, and so forth) are let free to continue, without penalty. Something needs to be done to this unaddressed gap. I suggest the first order of business when a traffic accident or dispute has occurred is for drivers to remove their machines when such clogs the free passage of traffic. That is, unless serious injury or a fatality is the case. In lesser instances, the rest of the traveling public should not be held hostage to the wrangling and angling for an edge that are now second nature to citizens in this habitat.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
