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PNCR slams PPPC’s Road Safety strategies

Jul 03, 2011 News

People’s National Congress Reform presidential candidate, Brigadier David Granger, is calling on the current administration to implement correct policing, rigorous law-enforcement, efficient road engineering and proper licensing of vehicle drivers.
This call comes in the wake of the recent spate of road fatalities.
In a recent public statement Brigadier Granger said that the road deaths are a shocking reminder of how dangerous the roadways have become. He added that the figures are also a warning of the incompetence of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Administration.
Granger proposed that the Ministry of Home Affairs can prevent most road accidents if some stringent measures are put in place.
The PNC/R leader also referred to a statement by Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy when he stated that road accidents were the seventh leading cause of all deaths. According to Granger, Minister Ramsammy pointed out that the real tragedy was that not a single road death should occur since it is something that is preventable.
“In Guyana virtually all of our families have somebody that died before their time. We have somebody living with disability because of accidents. That is unacceptable,” Dr. Ramsammy said.
The Party Leader added that Guyana’s rate of road fatalities has been frighteningly high since the PPP/C entered office. “Guyana Police Force Chief Traffic Officer, Superintendent John Daniels recently told a meeting, held to observe the Global Decade of Action for Road Safety Month 2010-2020, that 1,377 persons were killed in fatal accidents, among them 199 children, 568 pedestrians and 160 drivers during the last decennium”.
It was also stated that former Chief Traffic Officer, Superintendent Roland Alleyne who spoke  at the re-launching of the National Road Safety Council  some time ago, disclosed that there had been 1,883 deaths as a result of accidents on the roadways in the period 1995-2006, an average rate of more than three per week for over eleven years!
Had such a large number of persons – 1,883 – been slaughtered by bandits in criminal massacres, there would most likely have been an outcry and demands for inquiries from civil society.
According to Granger, pedestrians, such as the child Jaswattie Ramnauth, unfortunately, constitute the leading category of all persons killed in road accidents. “They are this country’s most vulnerable road users and run the greatest risk of injury or death”.
He added that every month, three or four pedestrians, most of them either very young or very old are killed on the roads.
Granger further pointed out that sidewalks are rare while many streets do not have marked crossings and there is no indication of where or how pedestrians are expected to cross to the other side.
“Zebra crossings, where they exist, are frequently faded and unmarked grass verges alongside roadways tend to be uneven, stony, muddy or encumbered by builders’ waste and vendors’ stalls.  Pedestrians are often forced to walk onto the motorways where they must compete with moving vehicles for space amidst domestic animals, parked or broken-down vehicles and heaps of sand or mud”.
“Having stated all this, the PNCR calls on the Minister of Home Affairs to display a greater sense of responsibility with respect to road safety.
“After nearly five years at the Ministry, Clement Rohee must be aware that the problem is that too many persons drive  too fast and  too few traffic policemen are deployed on the rural roadways where speeding is rampant, both by day and night”.

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