In last Sunday’s column “How Come” I wrote about a young man in my family who was travelling as a passenger in a car recently that was hit by a speeding vehicle, driven by someone under the influence, in the kind of lunatic driving that is routine in Guyana. I commented: “Fortunately, he was unharmed, but questions linger. In choosing to run a red light or to drive through a stop-sign from a side street at high speed, we are risking possible death or dismemberment to innocent people in our path and to ourselves. How come we still do it?”
One week to the day after I wrote that, I am reading online an item in the Trinidad Express that caught my eye because of the headline which said: “Lifetime Ban for Drunk Driving Mechanic”. The story tells us that a mechanic by the name of Wazir Ramjohn will never legally drive again because he was permanently disqualified from driving after he appeared in court on his third charge of being behind the wheel while under the influence of alcohol. The article said: “Ramjohn, 52 of Marabella, blamed his actions of driving while drunk on Easter Sunday –April 16 – on the anniversary of the death of his son. The magistrate however told him if he got relief from drinking he should not drive. Ramjohn’s son died two years ago on April 13. His cause of his death was not mentioned in court.
