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Agricola accident hotspot in the news again
…residents cite need for traffic light
It was either a case of haste or the lack of heeding caution that landed 28-year-old Hansley Watts in the hospital yesterday after the taxi he was driving slammed in to a truck belonging to Banks DIH Limited.
The accident happened shortly after noon at the East Bank Demerara Public Road at the junction with the road leading to Agricola.
The truck driver Orin George relates what transpired to a police rank while a colleague looks on
According to eyewitness reports, the truck was coming out of Agricola. Watts failed to heed the warning of the driver of a pickup who had stopped and had activated his vehicle’s hazard lights to facilitate the truck’s departure out of Brutus Street.
The truck driver, Orin George, related to police ranks that the pickup did indeed stop to allow him access to the Agricola main road, and he was already more than halfway across when he saw a green vehicle speeding towards him; it subsequently slammed into the truck.
Even in pain, the driver of the taxi, which belongs to his brother, denied that he failed to heed the warning, and insisted that he was not speeding.
He indicated that he was on his way to the airport.
The damage to the car was extensive. The entire front was smashed in.
Meanwhile, residents are expressing their displeasure at the absence of traffic lights at that junction.
One woman said that it would only be when “a big one” gets into an accident that a traffic light would be installed.
“You know is how much accident happen here for this year alone…watch the li’l girl wha get she head get smash in recently at this same corner,” recalled one resident.
The resident was referring to 11-year-old Shenice Henriques, of Agricola Public Road, who was killed on the spot in January after a pickup transporting MTV personnel slammed into a sidewalk on the East Bank public road at Agricola.
Henriques was reportedly standing on the eastern sidewalk of the public road, near Brutus Street, when the vehicle struck her.
The damaged taxi
She sustained massive head injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
According to a police traffic official, the pickup was heading at a fast rate south along the East Bank Demerara Public Road when another vehicle came out of Agricola onto the public road.
The official said that the driver of the pickup swerved to avoid the vehicle and slammed into the sidewalk where Henriques was standing, hitting her before overturning.
More recently, Terrence McKend, of Third Street, Agricola was struck down by a Leyland truck at the same location.
According to the driver of that truck, he was travelling along the western carriageway of the East Bank Highway, heading to the city, when he observed two men on a bicycle in the vicinity of the Agricola entrance.
The man said that it appeared that the rider of the bicycle was attempting to navigate across the road but swayed in an uncertain way.
The driver said that he started blowing the horn of the truck in the hope that the rider would clear his path. He said that he slowly started to apply brakes.
However, the driver related it was just when he thought that he had safely passed the men that he heard a sound at the back of the truck.
The man said that he stopped and checked, only to see that one of the men was somehow crushed by the rear wheels of the truck.
(Gary Eleazar)
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