Dear Editor,
Mortality salience is the awareness by individuals that their death is inevitable. However, the daily increase in the number of deaths due to road accidents has hastened and heightened both the level of awareness and inevitability. The trend in injuries and death is becoming alarming, with the human factor being the prime contributor. With the construction of more highways to ease congestion, the callous practice of speeding has now become a major bugbear for traffic officers. Most drivers continue to act like maniacs in a tearing hurry, and error in judgement often leads to major accidents. Reckless driving, speeding, declining to follow traffic rules, and drunken driving are main reasons for road accidents. The lives of many individuals have been enhanced by motorization and societies, but the benefits have come with a price. Car users jockey to get in front of others, as all try to carve out their own prime moving road real estate space.
In an interview last year, Traffic Chief Dennis Stephen explained that while traffic ranks are deployed to certain highways, especially the Mandela-Eccles Four Lane highway the responsibility still stands with those behind the wheel. He noted that too often, drivers tend to lose consideration for the safety of others. Sadly, it is blatantly obvious based on current happenings that consideration for the safety of others is certainly not a priority for those behind the wheel. Driving home this revelation even further is the fact that in 2015 Acting Traffic Chief Dion Moore stated that it is with the five ‘Cs’- Care, Commonsense, Consideration, Courtesy and Caution that a person moves from point A to point B . There is none so blind as those who cannot see the “common “c” let alone the capital “C”. “.
I join with my fellow Guyanese in calling on the Traffic Chief to recognize that the number of fatal and disabling road accidents is a real public health challenge.
The approach to implement the rules and regulations available to prevent road accidents has been ineffective and half-hearted. Awareness creation, strict implementation of traffic rules, harsh deterrent and scientific engineering measures are the need of the hour to prevent this public health catastrophe. This approach should address the traffic system as a whole and look into interactions between vehicles, road users, and road infrastructure to identify solutions. Some of the modalities that should be looked at in the prevention should be the condition of the roads, ensuring that they are well maintained with frequent relaying of road surfaces and markings of road safety signs. Proper well marked footpaths for pedestrians and pedestrian crossings at intersections. The provision of separate identified lanes for slow-moving and fast-moving vehicles. Roads ,should be well lit so that visibility is good. Parked vehicles especially trucks should utilize warning devices such as hazard lights, cones, or reflective signs to alert other drivers of the parked truck. Effective community participation also plays a key role in the prevention of road accidents. Deterrents of a severe nature, should take the form of unprecedented lengthy prison sentences for drivers whose reckless driving caused death, with the number of deaths serving as the factor for an increase in years to be served, moreover if alcohol was also a contributory factor.
Seeing that Care, Consideration, Commonsense, Courtesy and Caution have exited the minds of Guyanese drivers then they should be joltingly returned using never-before-heard measures, in order to ensure the safety of other road users.
If the way in which Guyanese use the roads was the barometer employed to measure its civilization, it would be prehistoric to say the least.
We must step into the light and drive right.
Yours faithfully,
Yvonne Sam.
