Dear Editor,
Our roads have become a dangerous conveyor to premature extinction. Yet those who are responsible for controlling the movement of transport and people along and across Guyana’s highways, byways (and low ways) confess to their impotence at being able to stem the metallic and bloody carnage.
These ‘stakeholders’ in the transportation business have shown a curiously confounding disinterest in the decimation of the living and the desecration of surviving lives and livelihoods. The latter, maimed and invalided, must ponder, amongst the debris of either self-destruction, or of the plunder of antagonistic drivers, on what ‘life insurance’ means. It is difficult to locate any manifestation of the care or concern implicit in this kind of investment in the sustenance of life. It is difficult to comprehend why, for example, all the ‘stakeholders’ involved in the ownership and operation of certain forms of public transport are not required by the Traffic Department of the Guyana Police Force to undergo formal training in the control of their vehicles and in the understanding of the traffic rules, so prevalently ignored.
It is difficult to understand how the collaborating government stakeholders − the GRA and the GPF – could persistently overlook the blatant access to an official driver’s licence of any classification, without a formal police certification, by drivers of public transport. The same defective process applies to privately owned vehicles, as ‘privileged’ owners go through the motion of learning on their own merely how to propel the vehicle, or are taught by others equally unwitting of the traffic laws, in preparation for processing a ‘valid’ licence. It would be interesting to see the official statistics on the numbers trained and tested by the police over the past two years, say, as compared to the number of drivers’ licences issued.
As one whose first valid licence was issued several decades ago, and who now resorts to taxi services, it is at least disconcerting to observe, amongst others, the (senior) age of persons obviously driving for the first time – a discomfiture compounded by the exuberance of young drivers too illiterate to read a street name or a traffic sign, assuming the latter is in an upright position. In this connection the Traffic Department remains obdurate, and simply refuses to follow the rest of the world in executing ‘Stop,’ ‘No Entry,’ ‘Right/Left Turn’ and other signs, so that logically they can be observed from a reasonably safe distance, consistent with the traffic lights.
Instead there is this insistence on painting and repainting signs which either fade quickly into invisibility, (and/or are totally invisible in the poorly lit night); or covered by accumulating dust and dirt when not flooded.
The fact is that Guyana can be identified as having the least (or worst) number and quality of traffic signage in the Caribbean, not to mention elsewhere. The relevant traffic officials and/or members of the Road Safety Council should be required to visit the sister territories of Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica and have their knowledge and imagination expanded. After that it should take little encouragement to have the private sector contribute to the funding of intelligent signage throughout the city, and beyond.
Neither they nor the public administration can continue to distance themselves from this wanton destruction of human resources potential, in whatever form. For example, local insurers can well liaise with their Barbados counterparts to learn of the stringencies applied in granting licences to ‘minibus’ type transporters. Any other related portrayal of corporate social responsibility by these institutions, in this particular regard would certainly be welcome.
Of course there is much more that can, and must be, done. It is simply not enough to ‘appeal’ to the ‘dead’ and the ‘maimed’ and those culpable. Those concerned could certainly be thoughtful enough to analyse the timings, locations, and other relevant circumstances surrounding the numerous accidents (including the non-fatal) and formulate plans for eliminating and/or reducing the spiralling incidence. Should they, as they must, regard themselves accountable as perceived by some observers, then hopefully the former would be more proactive in addressing this indiscriminating fault-line in our society. Fewer of us would have anyone, or anything, to lose, if we continue to remind ourselves that it can happen to us and our own, any day (or night) now.
Hopefully, note will be taken at the level of the respective subject ministries and private sector organisations, and the aforementioned basic logical ‘initiatives’ will be appropriately instituted.
Yours faithfully,
E B John
