Lights that kill and kill and go on killing

Dec 29, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I have done two columns in the past (the first one was way in 2006) on the uncivilized use of the high beam by drivers and its deadly consequences. I am doing a third one based on the horrendous tragedy that took away Christmas enjoyment from a family now overwhelmed with grief
The Branche family was returning home to Rosignol from Georgetown on December 23 after picking up their overseas stuff in Georgetown for the season. The teenaged daughter was killed when the vehicle ran into a parked truck. A grieving Mrs. Branche told the media that the high beams of an oncoming car blinded her husband.
In one of those columns about the danger of the high beam I recalled a night of travel with Kaieteur News crime reporter, Dale Andrews. We traveled up to the West Coast on a dark night to cover a robbery. On our way back to Georgetown, Dale blinked his lights 23 times to oncoming drivers indicating that they must dip their bright lights. I counted it, 23 times and there wasn’t even one response
Not one driver responded to Leonard Craig’s signal to dim last month while we were on our way in the late evening to an AFC public meeting in Berbice. At Victoria, Craig pulled over and chastised a mini-bus driver who ignored Craig’s signal to dim and who stopped to put off a passenger.
It has become so terrible that drivers are using their high beans as the normal bulbs. What is even more sickening is that the rich, young spoilt noveau riche kids increase the watts of their normal bulbs, so imagine the watts on their high beams. These moneyed young people who don’t know that Europe is a continent and not a country haven’t a clue what purpose the high beams serve. Mini-bus drivers (some of the worst citizens of this land) as a matter of policy only use the high beam.
The police traffic department needs to go on an intensive campaign against the use of these high beams. But do you think they will? Even when police officials die from the irresponsible use of the bright lights of silly drivers, the police don’t act. Why would they now? Our police force is not overflowing with intelligent people. Here is an example of how backward our police force is.
On March 17, 2008, I was asked to do an editorial for this newspaper. Here is an extract from that commentary. “If you are traveling south on Vlissengen Road and you want to turn west into Queenstown there are only two bridges you can do that on. Those very bridges also cater for drivers on Irving Street that want to turn east onto Vlissengen Road. The result is a daily and nightly congestion of huge proportions, especially in the afternoon rush hours.” (end of quote)
I wrote that editorial six years ago suggesting that the two bridges between Vlissengen Rod and Irving Street, one at Lance Gibbs Street, the other at Crown Street, be made into one-ways in opposite directions. Do you know when that suggestion was accepted? Two weeks before the year 2014 is about to end; that is, the police made the changes two weeks ago. This is Naipaulian Guyana for you. After the complete insanity of drivers having to converge on the same day to renew their road licence at the Guyana Revenue Authority, the revenue people decided you can drop in on any given day and have it renewed. That was after I made that plea in my column to the GRA years before. This is Naipaulian Guyana for you
Here is an extract from a column in which the wife of a police inspector said her husband was blinded by an oncoming high beam and met his death. The column is captioned, “Lights that Kill,” Sunday may 28, 2006. “The wife of a police inspector told me she saw her husband killed by the use of the high beam light of an oncoming motorist. She told me it was in the early hours in the morning and as her husband turned a bend on the West Berbice road, the lights of the ongoing car dazzled her husband and as he yelled out, he just lost control and ran head on into the coming car.” (end of quote)
So when do you think the police are going to implement a campaign against high beams? Maybe we should ask Clement Rohee, who appeared on television recently threatening push-cart sellers of CDs. They make noise with their decibels alright, but the music doesn’t kill anyone. High beams do.

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