Dear Editor,
Travelling across the Demerara Harbour Bridge on Friday, July 12th around 5.30pm (rush hour), there was a long line of vehicles on the bridge and it took us more than half an hour to cross. I was under the impression that either there had been an accident or repairs were being done. Upon reaching the western side of the bridge I saw the cause for the delay.
Editor, at the head of the western side of the bridge there was a police officer standing and talking to someone on his cellphone. After he finished the call, he returned to the traffic and started stopping certain vehicles and inspecting papers or talking to the drivers. Now whilst he is doing that, all the other vehicles have to wait until he has finished with that vehicle before the line resumes moving. The road he was on was widened tremendously, and I wondered why he didn’t go to the wider section of the road and stop vehicles and make them go into the corner so he could do his duty, at the same time allowing the traffic to flow freely instead of stopping it at the bottleneck. His actions convinced me he that he was showing off the powers he had and just wanted to impress everyone.
Editor, before I could exit from the bridge, I was delayed because the officer stopped both lanes of traffic to allow vehicles from one of the side streets to cross and go onto the bridge. Now for years this madness has been happening and I believe that it’s time someone put a stop to it.
Whenever traffic builds up on the western end of the bridge, many drivers who believe that they are late would drive around to the side street from La Grange side and come up in front and that allows them to reach the bridge faster than those who are in the line. Now, in order for them to reach onto the bridge, the police have to stop traffic from both sides to allow them to pass. Why don’t the relevant authorities stop vehicles from exiting there, especially when it halts traffic. No one believes that these vehicles have some business in the street which they are exiting, especially when you see Route 32 minibuses coming from the West Bank area which is not their zone.
Yours faithfully,
Sahadeo Bates
