Part of the reason why troublesome issues tend, sometimes, to grow ‘from bad to worse,’ to fester, has to do with the fact that insofar as many of us are concerned there is considerable virtue in what we are wont to describe as minding our own business. As it happens there are far too many instances in which the practice of ‘staying quiet’ can well cost us dear. Such may well be the case in the instance of the carnage on our roads. It may well be that there is insufficient pressure for change.
Long before we had embarked on the most recent round of major coastal road rehabilitation, which, to a great extent, covered the corridors that take us east and south out of the Capital, the state of our major highways and the attendant regime of vehicular accidents and related deaths and injuries had been the subject of vigorous public discourse. Public expressions of concern have, however, failed to bring about any significant betterment in the state of affairs. Our upgraded roads have become significantly more dangerous; or perhaps it may be more appropriate to say that better roads have induced a markedly higher level of recklessness on the part of road users that point in the direction of a diminished appreciation for the value of life and limb. As a corollary to this we have, as well, never fully appreciated the virtue of efficient traffic administration. Indeed, bending the law, all too frequently, appears to be of greater concern.
There are those who contend with considerable persuasiveness that the prevailing ‘tearaway’ road use regime that now appears to obtain is a microcosm of a deeper descent into indiscipline that drifts across other sections of our society as well. Here, it is not simply a matter of a sudden inexplicable national desire to ‘go rogue;’ it may well derive from (and frequently does) a preparedness on the part of law enforcement to cut the delinquents generous measures of ‘slack.’
Nowhere, these days, is such a condition more apparent than in the relationship between road users and law enforcement.
Over time we have had to live with the notion that the behaviour of road users and the consequences that derive therefrom are solely a function of their own delinquency. ‘Hard evidence’ to the contrary would surely, by now, have persuaded us that the problem, derives not so much from the indifference of law enforcement but, in much larger measure, from its preparedness to serve as a willing facilitator in the culture of indiscipline of our roads. Not only can the Guyana Police Force not seriously look us in the eye and say they are doing their best; not when there is irrefutable evidence to the contrary, including publicly displayed evidence that some of its functionaries are, in fact, part of the problem.
Here it is not a matter of a traffic rank here and there, ‘picking up a raise’ for a marginal tint infraction. Outside the Plaisance Police Station, for example, particularly after darkness falls, teams of police ‘traffic monitors’ oversee what appears to be less than discreet ‘shakedowns’ targeting some motorists guilty of one infraction or another.
Whatever else we may think, responsible road use and a commensurate reduction in road mishaps will not materialize unless there can occur some kind of high-level initiative to restrain police functionaries in pursuit of these shameless shakedowns that make a complete mockery of the very idea of law enforcement. Change in this regard can only come if it is driven from the top and if it is extended to cover the full range of the laws governing the use of the roads as well as the creation of an understanding between the Police and the Courts that the treatment of traffic offences must be seen against the backdrop of the deep and damaging gouges that transgressions leave in the fabric of our society.
The reality is that nothing will change until there is, first, a preparedness on the part of the key institutions, particularly those who lead them, to enforce the law with the requisite rigidity bearing in mind that, as would appear to be the case in our country, better roads have resulted in higher levels of recklessness and other traffic-related transgressions.
What law enforcement appears not to understand too, is that in matters such as road use management, the existence of rules means nothing unless these are buttressed by the requisite level of enforcement. Where transgressions become the order of the day and where, more particularly, questionable ‘law enforcement’ practices afford immunity from transgression, as so often appears to be the case in our country, we do not have a bat’s chance in hell of stopping the carnage on the roads.
We are told, for example, that some of our high-on-adrenalin drivers are ‘good with’ some of the traffic ranks (and reportedly higher ranks too) who ‘work’ the same routes as the minibuses. What happens in these instances is that those minibus operators acquire the privilege of ‘doing the gods,’ as we say in Guyana, until they become involved in one of those now frequent fearful smash-ups that take multiple lives and leave even greater numbers empty.
In the cold light of day that emerges from these mishaps we must endure altogether meaningless official reactions that gingerly skirt around the issue, always, it seems, unmindful of an appreciation of what we in Guyana describe as the ‘bottom line.’
The reality is that traffic management can only be effective if, in the first instance, there is some kind of moral commitment to it. We can ‘bump our gums’ from, here to eternity but unless we come to terms with the fact that the flaw is, principally, one of integrity and commitment to safety on our roads, the official cynicism as well as the tragedies of the victims will remain. It is the fractured nature of our national traffic administration regime that is, in large measure, the problem here. Unless law enforcement, principally the Guyana Police Force and the Courts, turn this around we are on a hiding to nowhere.