Guyanese roads can lead to oblivion

Dec 06, 2019 Editorial

Those newfangled vehicles can go fast; real fast and too fast, injuriously and fatally fast. The news reports are quickly assuming the regularity of routine: another terrible accident, another grotesquely smashed and crumpled metal hulk once a magical machine, and someone–hopefully only one and not any–broken for the rest of this life, or blanked into the cypher of eternity.
If only Guyanese drivers-all of us, all of them-would listen and actually hear: speeding is endangering and crippling and, ultimately, killing.
The message is captured and conveyed by that single word, only one word: speeding. Then add a few more: speeding is a loser’s game that leads to one of two places only: a hospital bed or the graveyard. It is the same message of caution and appeal issued by mothers, the mature, those who know better, those who may have been there before through individual involvement or personal loss and pain.
The Guyana Police Force has been unrelenting with its own messages: slow down, follow the rules, observe the courtesies, live healthier and longer.
Nobody is listening: not the many young, hot blooded impatient, who are in a haste to make a waste of their youthful lives, and not the dead on the sidewalk shrouded in a sheet, for they are now beyond any more listening to anything, especially old-school, old-timer wisdom.
It is not just the thrill of teenagers, since the older, supposedly more stable minds and cooler heads are also seen racing along at breakneck speeds and heard honking horns at anything, including what is imagined or anticipated.
Guyanese drivers can be this alert, this sensitive, and this much in a hurry that there may be absolutely nothing on the road and in the way, and still there is the blowing of horns, as if reassuring that they still work, and that they (the drivers) are still alive.
As said before, most are not listening, which leads to the news of the mad disregard that leads to lasting bodily wounds and eternal spiritual woes. And they are only the statistics that contain and relay the sad stories of human failure and physical disaster; they are the many other daily occurrences, as shared by the lucky survivors, of narrow escapes, near misses, and recklessness that are so much a part of road culture and road survival.
In this country, defensive driving can attract much that is offensive. Going slow(er) and observing the speed limit is enough to attract several unwanted gifts. There are the gifts of too close company (tailgating), of high-volume, high intensity urging and warning (horn blowing), of urban camaraderie (middle finger saluting), and of the lingering aroma of that special Guyanese traffic language (cursing).
It is surprising that there are not more reported instances of road rage fallout, or of people losing control and losing life in the process. It only promises to get worse, given what is underway and what is on the various drawing boards.
Take a look and it is obvious that this country is busy with the visible roadworks, which means more lanes and more miles of roadways, which should function as the blessing of much-needed relief. The problem is that this transforms into a double-edged sword, a flashing, life-threatening weapon placed in the hands of the irresponsible and impatient, who set aside neither time nor energy for the reflections that bring the wisdoms leading to corrections.
It is because more lanes and more space mean more room to floor the gas and create the lethal catapults that usher in untold dangers in even the most ordinary situations, which can quickly rise to the level of daily existential crises.
When so many younger ones occupy a place of numerical significance in the national demographics, there is a lot of raging and rarefied blood that races to the roar of engines and the rushing intoxicating breath of the wind in the ear and heart.

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