Dear Editor,
It would seem to be the case that the new traffic laws are being happily exploited by certain members of the police service in Georgetown.
Two young British tourists were crossing the junction at Camp/Regent Streets in the mid-morning of Thursday, January 17 and were accosted by a uniformed Guyanese policeman. The policeman informed them that they had crossed against a red light and were therefore guilty of jay-walking. The young tourists, who had only arrived in the country late the night before, had been visiting Georgetown for less than 30 minutes and were a little perplexed as jaywalking (crossing against a red-light) is not universally recognised as illegal and has never been an offence in the UK.
The policeman demanded an ‘on-the-spot’ fine of $15,000 each. Of course, the young tourists did not have anything like the amount of money which was being demanded, so the policeman extorted $3000 of the $6000 they had in their combined-pockets and sent them on their way.
Is the new (and badly advertised and largely unknown) law against “Jaywalking” now on the Guyanese statute book to:
Destroy the fragile tourist industry?
Bolster the salary of the local constabulary?
Further chip away any confidence the Guyanese may have had in their police service?
Give a sanction which the local authorities can (intelligently) use to discourage the hardened, anti-social behaviour of a small minority of the city’s residents?
Hopefully the law was passed to allow the latter? Unfortunately the way that it is being enforced only encourages the first three.
Yours faithfully,
(name and address supplied)
Editor’s note
Section 61 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act provides as follows:
“If any person wilfully loiters or remains on any roadway in such a manner or in such circumstances as to be likely to cause danger or obstruction to persons driving or propelling vehicles on the road he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine of fifty dollars.”
The visitors do not seem to have fallen within the ambit of this `jaywalking’ section but even if they had surely the proper course would have been to have given them a polite warning rather than to extract a bribe.
We are not aware of any new regulations being introduced since the traffic lights were commissioned.
