Some motorists should be charged with murder

Oct 30, 2010 Editorial

Within the past few months many of us began to realize that there is madness on the roads. We have been seeing too many accidents. In fact, scarcely a day goes by without someone getting hurt in a vehicular accident or without vehicles colliding.
In the city, we could only conclude that some of the people permitted to drive can barely keep a vehicle on the road. They are probably unable to decipher the traffic signs with the result that they fail to stop at major roads and ignore the rules governing vehicles approaching intersections.
All along coastal Guyana there is the perception that people should be scared to use the streets. Vehicles speed as though they are the only ones permitted to use the roadways. More often than not drivers are unable to bring their vehicles to a stop. We have had crashed at locations known as accident hotspots. We often wonder whether drivers simply do not learn because it is almost impossible to imagine that dozens of drivers would become involved in accidents at the same spot under the same conditions.
And not surprisingly, the excuses are the same; one driver did not see the other. There should not have been any accident because one was supposed to stop.
However, all these pale into insignificance. Yesterday, twelve people died on the roads in what must be the worst accident on the Corentyne Highway. A minibus with even more people than it should be transporting, slammed into a truck. Among the dead were a baby and its mother.
To judge from the wreckage one is surprised that anyone lived. This accident occurred on a long straight stretch of roadway where there are no obstructions and certainly nothing to impede vision. There was an attempt on the part of the minibus to overtake a car. So we come to distractions.
The driver had to be crazy because there was nothing to prevent him from seeing the approaching truck. He had to be distracted by something.
We know that these days with cellular phones drivers attempt to dial numbers and make calls while driving. Guyana has instituted a law that prohibits this but it is not stopping people from continuing this practice.
Many people actually text. All over the world we are now learning that people cause more accidents while using their mobile phones. And so we come to the most horrific accident to occur on the Corentyne Highway that claimed the twelve lives.
Initial reports are that the driver of the truck was at fault. He reportedly swerved into the path of the laden minibus with deadly consequences. The reports also state that the minibus was traveling at a fast rate on this long stretch of roadway that tempts the inexperienced and the indisciplined.
As could be expected nothing much happened to the truck and the driver was able to run away from the scene of the accident. What manner of man is this to flee without any consideration for the possible survivors?
Last night and in the coming days there will be mourning beyond belief. Homes would be devastated because among the dead will be mothers, fathers and community leaders. We already know that some teachers died in that crash.
Such accidents will always happen because the punishment meted out by the state is almost inconsequential. We are certain that if the laws could be modified to lead to charges of murder drivers would be more careful.
In the United States some people lobbied to have drunk drivers charged with murder. This is now the case and we are almost certain that people are paying attention to the traffic rules.
It is time that Guyana seek to have people charged with murder when through their recklessness, they kill people. The minibus driver cannot be held as an example because he died, taking with him so many others.
We are certain that if this were the case, that people be charged with vehicular murder, that there would not have been that devastating accident. There would be the normal platitude from the officials; no one would move to the courts to seek compensation for their loss.

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