The deadliest road in Trinidad & Tobago

The final resting spot of this country’s first road traffic fatality William Leslie Nicol at the Lapeyrouse Cemetery
The final resting spot of this country’s first road traffic fatality William Leslie Nicol at the Lapeyrouse Cemetery

(Trinidad Guardian) The dead­liest stretch of road­way in Trinidad & Tobago is a 700-me­tre por­tion of the M2 Ring Road in Debe, where at least sev­en peo­ple have been killed as a re­sult of five fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents be­tween 2013 and 2017.

Ac­cord­ing to da­ta com­piled by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Traf­fic and High­way Branch’s Road­way Sur­veil­lance Unit (RSU), while there were sev­en road deaths “con­cen­trat­ed on 708-me­tres of this road” be­tween 2013 to 2017, for the en­tire M2 Ring Road there were nine fa­tal ac­ci­dents which re­sult­ed in 13 deaths. The stretch has now be­come known as the “death strip” by res­i­dents of the area.

Sta­tis­tics tab­u­lat­ed by the RSU list the caus­es of those crash­es as “skid­ding and los­ing con­trol” and “fail­ure to keep to the prop­er traf­fic lane”. The speed lim­it for the road is 50 km/hr.

The M2 Ring Road is on­ly about four km long and more than 200 ac­ci­dents have tak­en place on it since 2013.

In an ef­fort to en­hance the safe­ty of the area, in 2017 the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port per­formed milling around the cor­ners to in­crease trac­tion, as peo­ple com­plained about their ve­hi­cles skid­ding of the road. Rum­ble strips and more sig­nage was al­so added in the area.

TTPS Road Safe­ty co-or­di­na­tor Brent Bat­son said the San Fer­nan­do Traf­fic Speed Team al­so in­creased pa­trols in the area to de­ter speed­ing.

Be­cause a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the ac­ci­dents in the area re­sult­ed in peo­ple smash­ing in­to con­crete elec­tric­i­ty poles and be­ing se­ri­ous­ly in­jured or killed, road safe­ty group Ar­rive Alive asked the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to con­sid­er adding padding to the poles or us­ing a dif­fer­ent ma­te­r­i­al.

In spite of these changes, how­ev­er, yet an­oth­er life was lost on the M2 Ring Road last April.

Adesh Ram­nath, 34, of Cedar Hill Vil­lage, Princes Town, died when his sil­ver Nis­san Wingroad crashed in­to a white Toy­ota mini­van.

The sec­ond dead­liest road in T&T, ac­cord­ing to the RSU sta­tis­tics, is the M1 Tasker Road. Ac­cord­ing to the sta­tis­tics, six peo­ple were killed as a re­sult of five fa­tal ac­ci­dents along the M1 Tasker Road be­tween 2013 and 2017.

“The fa­tal ac­ci­dents most­ly oc­curred on cor­ners,” the RSU sta­tis­tics stat­ed.

Last May, 59-year-old Azard Ali died in an ac­ci­dent along the M1 Track­er Road, Princes Town.

Main Roads, such as the M2 Ring Road and the M1 Tasker Road, have ac­count­ed for 123 fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents over the last two years. In com­par­i­son, the na­tion’s high­ways record­ed 73 fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents over that two year pe­ri­od and the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route ac­count­ed for 14 fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents over the two years.

Ram­nath and Ali were among the 112 peo­ple who were killed in road traf­fic ac­ci­dents last year. That fig­ure was the low­est num­ber of road traf­fic deaths the coun­try has record­ed in a year since 1958.

The road fa­tal­i­ty fig­ure has not been able to dip be­low the 100 mark since then.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, 2019 has so far seen a rise in the num­ber of road traf­fic deaths as com­pared to last year.

Sev­en peo­ple were killed dur­ing a four day pe­ri­od in Feb­ru­ary.

Around 12.30 am on Feb­ru­ary 14, 67-year-old Jes­si­ca Mar­tin, of St Lu­cien Road, Diego Mar­tin, was killed when the ve­hi­cle in which she was a pas­sen­ger in got in­to an ac­ci­dent.

On Feb­ru­ary 15, 60-year-old, Michael Hen­ry, a pen­sion­er, of Waller­field Road, Ari­ma, was killed when he was fa­tal­ly struck by a mo­tor ve­hi­cle while at­tempt­ing to cross the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way.

On Feb­ru­ary 16, 26-year-old fire of­fi­cer Ker­win Dun­can Dwayne Dick, 29, De­on Bur­kette, 33, Rae Cipeo, 40, all died when the ve­hi­cle in which they were trav­el­ling slammed in­to a util­i­ty pole in the Long­denville dis­trict.

On Feb­ru­ary 17, 63-year-old Wayne Slater, of Mount St George, was killed af­ter he lost con­trol of the ve­hi­cle he was dri­ving and crashed in­to the con­crete me­di­an at the Auchenskeoch round­about in To­ba­go.

Over the last ten years, 1,648 peo­ple have been killed on the na­tion’s roads, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the RSU.

The ma­jor­i­ty of those who died as a re­sult of road traf­fic ac­ci­dents over the last three years were males be­tween the age 25-34.

Trinidad & Tobago’s mo­tor ve­hi­cle his­to­ry

But where did it all be­gin?

A sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in this coun­try’s his­to­ry was re­cent­ly ob­served, as ex­act­ly 119 years ago the first car rolled in­to T&T. That car in ques­tion was a steam-pow­ered Lo­co­mo­bile Run­about and its own­ers, Messrs Gar­ner and Khun be­came im­me­di­ate celebri­ties.

Ten years lat­er, in 1910, more than 50 mo­tor ve­hi­cles were on the streets of T&T, in­clud­ing the first lor­ry which was im­port­ed in 1909 by Leo De­venish.

And then tragedy struck.

On Oc­to­ber 9, 1911, Trinidad & Tobago record­ed its first death as a re­sult of a road traf­fic ac­ci­dent.

The de­ceased was William Lesli Nicol and he was killed on his 47th birth­day.

The ac­ci­dent oc­curred near the then St Clair Tram Ter­mi­nus, which is now the site where the Gov­ern­ment is build­ing a ho­tel to re­place the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture.

At the time of the ac­ci­dent, Sir George Ruthven Le Hunte was the Gov­er­nor of T&T and it was his dri­ver, Cap­tain Bod­dam-Whetham, who killed Nicol and in­jured four oth­ers in that ac­ci­dent.

“The dead man was William Leslie Nicol who was the man­ag­er of the fa­mous Bo­nan­za Stores on Fred­er­ick Street. It is strange to note that the day of the ac­ci­dent, Oc­to­ber 9, was al­so Nicol’s birth­day. Nicol was a Scots­man who had come out to the is­land with his younger broth­er Alexan­der around 1890 and found em­ploy­ment as a clerk in the Bo­nan­za Stores in 1895,” his­to­ri­an An­ge­lo Bisses­sars­ingh wrote about the in­ci­dent.

“His fu­ner­al was one of great sor­row be­cause he was a well-liked fig­ure in the city. His body was borne from Greyfri­ars Kirk on Fred­er­ick Street to Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery where his broth­er had paid for a plot,” Bisses­sars­ingh wrote.

Alexan­der al­so erect­ed a mon­u­ment for William which states:

“Erect­ed by Alexan­der Nicol in mem­o­ry of his beloved broth­er, William Leslie Nicol, mer­chant, el­dest son of Charles and Ann H W Nicol, Port­soy Scot­land, who was killed in a mo­tor ac­ci­dent on his 47th birth­day 9th Oc­to­ber 1911. They loved him most who knew him best. They will be done.”

Nicol’s death, how­ev­er, was not in vain.

“Nicol did not die in vain even though Capt Whetham was nev­er charged. Gov­er­nor Sir George Le Hunte, whose dri­ver and car caused the col­li­sion, im­ple­ment­ed traf­fic laws in 1912 which con­sti­tut­ed the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles Act and which man­dat­ed the li­cens­ing of ve­hi­cles and dri­vers, in­spec­tion of the for­mer, and test­ing of the lat­ter. The Traf­fic Branch of the Trinidad Con­stab­u­lary was formed to ad­min­is­trate this func­tion un­til the for­ma­tion of the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion in the 1960s. Thus, Nicol can be seen as the un­for­tu­nate sac­ri­fice which cat­alyzed leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy re­form.”

While in 1900 Trinidad & Tobago on­ly had one car, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est sta­tis­tics there are now some 900,000 ve­hi­cles on the roads.