The flawed policy of sacred cows

Sep 08, 2012 Editorial

When someone dies in a road accident the nation takes note because the roads are supposed to be safe and drivers are supposed to be careful. When the victim is a former police commissioner who once headed the people who vowed to keep the streets safe then one is left to wonder at how safe the roads really are.
The initial reports state that the former police commissioner may have initiated the accident that involved three vehicles—a car, a delivery truck and his own vehicle which was a sports utility vehicle. In addition to the former commissioner, a child died. All told 10 people were involved.
The vehicles were heading in opposite directions. The rules of the road insist that people stay in their lanes. If people adhere to that basic principle then everyone would enjoy safe passage on the streets. Vehicles heading toward each other should never collide unless one of them develops some malfunction that would force it into the opposite lane.
There could also be a collision if one of the drivers suffers some ailment that would render him incapacitated. There have been numerous such cases.
In this case the eyewitnesses say that the former police commissioner swerved into the path of the car that was heading west along the public road. Close behind the car was the delivery truck. The former police commissioner reportedly struck both.
The former police commissioner was no stranger to accidents. He had repeatedly been involved in a number of accidents, some of them minor. However, there have been some major ones. Recently, he crashed into a horse drawn cart and a vehicle operated by the Demerara Harbour Bridge. He was unhurt. This episode was not publicised because the former commissioner had been embroiled in some unsavoury incidents. The view was that he should not be held up to more public scrutiny.
This accident now raises some serious issues. The police had some time back, spoken about re-testing drivers. In many countries drivers are tested constantly, especially after they have reached a certain age. The older the driver the more likely is that person to be involved in an accident of his own making.
In Guyana where people still treat the roads as a playground because the penalties are not severe enough to make people sit up and take notice of their actions, there is need for more rigid inspections of drivers.
The roads are not as wide as many would like them to be and because of this, the speed limits have been duly calibrated to match the condition of the road. Yet, as can be expected, people exceed the speed limits by huge amounts.
Some of those nabbed are prosecuted while others succeed in perverting the course of justice by paying the arresting ranks. The former commissioner would have been operating outside the pale. For one, no rank would have dared to arrest him for a vehicular incident. He would have been presiding over them not so long ago. This would have meant that he was above the law and beyond reproach.
He would not have been subjected to any further test and for certain, his driver’s licence would have been renewed without his presence. He would have been one of the dangers on the road.
It is time that the police and those responsible for safety on the roads cast aside the policy of sacred cows. A child died and several persons were injured in this case.
There is more to this accident and the death of the former commissioner. At issue here is the loss of skills. The former commissioner, Henry Greene, was not only a treasure house of knowledge of the police operations; he was also a legal mind having pursued legal studies at the height of his career.
Those things have been lost to the nation forever.

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