Murdering robots is more important than modernization

Oct 09, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

All kinds of crazy things happen in this country and people shrug their shoulders and get on with their lives. This is sad indeed because if we all adopt that stance, life in Guyana would become a Hobbesian nightmare if it is not close to that already.
A few of these crazy things are so crazy that they take Guyana back, far, far back into the medieval ages. I am a Georgetown boy who has lived his entire life in the capital city yet the traffic logic in many places in this city confuses me. It is just absurdly primitive.
Cummings, Light, Albert, Oronoque Streets run north to south. Crisscrossing these pathways are First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Six Streets in Alberttown. These same roads continue into Queenstown where they are given new names. Once you are in Alberttown and Queenstown, you don’t know which is the stop road and which is the right-of-way.
At one point Albert Street is the right-of-way, then as you stay on Albert Street, that very road becomes the one you have to ‘brake up’ because the east to west street is the right-of-way.
Commonsense should intervene and tell either the Ministry of Works or the Guyana Police Force that either the east to west or the north to south passages must be made entirely the major road. In Toronto, the longest stretch is Young Street that goes on for miles. You have to stop at all the intersections with Young Street.
What was President Forbes Burnham thinking when he massacred Main Street? For a learned man, Burnham left us with a large piece of stupidity. From Pegasus to Lamaha Street you have High Street. The same High Street becomes Main Street from thereon. Main Street becomes Avenue of the Republic at the Bank of Guyana and reverts to High Street after you pass the High Court of Judicature.
Main and High Streets aren’t named after any human being. Why not scrap them and from Pegasus to Carnegie School of Home Economics, you label that entire passageway Avenue of the Republic?
The more the years move on, the deeper Guyana recedes into ancient times. Go to any modern country and all one-way carriages carry the signs. It doesn’t matter if the entire population is aware that the pathway is a one-way stretch. There is a reason for that – all countries produce young people who may not be familiar with the customs of some of the districts in their own country.
Take Berbice. It is a rich county that has its own middle class. A student graduates from high school, begins to work and buys a car. Like many of us in Georgetown who drove to Berbice for the first time, this student may want to take the long journey to Georgetown. Where are the ‘no entry’ signs along the way on the following roadways – Church Street, North Road, South Road and Croal Street?
Why can’t that student from Berbice turn into Vlissengen Road onto Regent Street turn into Shiv Chanderpaul Drive to visit the GCC? Then as he/she leaves, they travel south and turn into Church Street going west. They have to turn west onto to North Road but where is the sign to tell that person he/she cannot turn west into Church Street?
Where is the sign to tell a visitor, traveling north on King Street that he/she cannot make a right turn to go east on North Road?
I saw a group of Chinese diplomats had pedestrians and motorists running for cover as they turned north into Wellington Street from from Robb Street. You can only go south on Wellington. I took my family to Linden in the late nineties and when I reached the heart of the city I heard voices screaming; “Freddie, Freddie you deh pon a waan way.” I honestly didn’t see any signs. The same thing happened again when I taught at the UG campus at Tain, Berbice. I was driving comfortably on a one-way street only to hear people shouting at me.
I didn’t know Berbice and if there were traffic signs as all modern countries have, then I would have been guided. Talk about stupidities. Many roads have humps, especially outside of schools. In the night, you cannot see those things and your car takes a good banging. Isn’t it commonsense to paint the sleeping policemen with reflecting paint?
Why is a certain Minister more interested in chopping down the robots GT&T put up for their advertisement and looking at which fruit vendors are selling on Government’s reserves rather than making Guyana a modern state?

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Murdering robots is more important than modernization

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