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The madness that prevails

Oct 15, 2011 Editorial

 

Hardly a day goes by without the media reporting about an accident caused by a vehicle that refused to stop at a traffic light or at a stop sign or at an intersection as prescribed by the lines denoting who should stop. The vehicles that ignore the traffic signs are not restricted to any class.
Cars, trucks and most of all, minibuses, continue to head to the junkyard as twisted bits of metal. Sometimes they do so with dried blood in them from the many victims, some of whom died.
On Thursday, there was a minibus with no less than eighteen secondary school children. The intersection where the accident occurred has been appropriately named ‘sweet hole’ because there is no week that some idiotic driver does not induce a crash. This minibus driver has a load of schoolchildren. They have been entrusted to him to get them to their destination safely.
Drivers are licensed because they satisfy the requirements to use the roads. They satisfy the licensing officers that they are aware of the traffic rules that include the rate of driving, the observance of signs and of course a knowledge of what the traffic officers describe as the five ‘Cs’.
This particular minibus driver, perhaps like all others, simply forget the things that afforded them the right to hold a licence and proceed to pilot a vehicle on the roads in any manner they choose. So there is this minibus driver approaching the intersection.  A vehicle stops in front of him; he refuses to do the same and wait in line. He drives around the vehicle and across the intersection.
A car hits his vehicle and sends the bus crashing on its side, trapping the schoolchildren inside. The driver, when he recognizes his position, kicks out some glass and climbs out of the vehicle. He does not spend time helping to extricate the passengers—children who were placed in his care. He flees the scene.
Not so long ago, a car literally flies off the East Bank Demerara Pubic Road and crashes into the living room of a house at the side of the road. The occupants of the home escape injury. Weeks later the driver decides that he was going to take legal action against the press for highlighting the position in which his car ended.
A few days ago, another crashes into the concrete fence of the same home.
A motorcyclist is dismembered on the West Berbice Public Road. According to reports, he rides out of a gas station and is making his way to work. A car coming from the opposite direction slams into him. The reports state that the car was overtaking a vehicle.
This must be madness on the part of the drivers and it is allowed to continue because the police and the courts are at odds on how to penalize errant drivers. The maximum sentence any driver charged with causing death has been a custodial period of three years. Sadly enough, although Guyana is said to be a litigious country the relatives of the victim do not pursue civil action.
We must admit that the police have upped the ante. They are suspending and even revoking the licences of people convicted of serious traffic offences. However, they are hamstrung by the absence of the tools to monitor the effect of the ban or the suspension.  Perhaps the advent of the communication cables to effect high speed internet would change all that.
The police may be in a position to better monitor the motorists who are penalised because in real time they could access the files of anyone registered with the Licence Revenue Office.
Yet we must be concerned that people who are nothing but irresponsible road users are allowed to operate. The economic situation of people in the society sometimes allows these potential killers to escape prosecution. The relatives of victims accept compensation of one sort or another. Taking money for a life is no better than paying a hired killer.
And it is unfortunate that the people who travel in the vehicles do not speak up when threats loom.
And the insurance for minibuses need to be adjusted. If one is injured in a minibus, the insurance companies pay a pittance.

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