The Traffic Chief, the roundabouts, traffic insanity and six streets

Dec 28, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Note: The caption for my Christmas day article was: “2021 was the worst colonised Christmas since Independence.” The print version was wrong. That was the caption of a previous column.

Kaieteur News – On Tuesday, December 21, (2021), I came off the Eve Leary beach with my dog and was about to drive off when a police vehicle pulled up alongside. I came out of my car and Traffic Chief, Ramesh Ashram greeted me.
I have known Mr. Ashram for a long time, long before his Traffic Chief status became a reality. I have always regarded him as one of the most pleasant police officers I have ever had conversations with. His attendant was in the car and I told him I wanted to ask a question and that I will publish his answer and cite the presence of his personal aide.
Can a traffic rank wave a driver to the side of the road at random and ask for his/her documents? His answer was no. He was pellucid on a related subject. When anti-crime ranks have a roadblock and your papers are requested, you have to produce it.
I asked another question. “Can there be a scientific replacement for traffic lights?” He smiled and did not answer. I told him it cannot stand up to logical thinking when you remove traffic lights and replace them with roundabouts. I expressed my emotional opinion that this just is not logical.
He told me the making of the roundabouts is a Ministry of Public Works thing and not that of the police force. I pressed on with the issue of the traffic signals. I explained that no one is going to go through a red light because of the fear of death. When you do not have signals, drivers aren’t going to stop.
I left Mr. Ashram with a suggestion. Set up a plain clothes research team outside the new roundabout at the Railway Embankment and Sheriff Street. The findings will show 90 percent of those who are supposed to stop, do not. I use two roundabouts more than once a day. Drivers do not stop at the roundabouts. Maybe I don’t know this because I live in Timbuktu and not in Georgetown.
You do not remove traffic lights. They are life-saving. The government removed the signals at two of the busiest intersections – Carifesta Avenue and Vlissengen Road and the Railway Embankment and Sheriff Street and what is the result? Any fool who uses those two roundabouts knows the answer.
On the nights of the 22, 23, and 24 I watched from my upper verandah everything that is so wrong about my country that when I see these backward manifestations, I want to run away from Guyana. On the Railway Embankment on those dates, there was pure traffic insanity and it was cruel.
West bound traffic going to Giftland could not move. East bound traffic turning into Giftland and heading up the East Coast could not move. Traffic coming out of MovieTowne Road to get onto the Railway Embankment could not move. Every driver was immobilised for more than an hour.
All it needed for civilisation to be restored was just two traffic ranks. At least the traffic would still have crawled but there would have been movement. I don’t know if it was true, but I heard a woman heading to the Georgetown Hospital gave birth in a car.
Finally, there are six streets on UG Road that lead into the district known as Cummings Lodge. The first one is at the huge Rama Krishna church, the last one is at the entrance of the Cyril Potter College Of Education. Every one of those six streets is intestinal in width. Yet all those streets accommodate two-way traffic.
During the Christmas season I had to drop off a few close friends and relatives in Cummings Lodge. Those streets cannot be two-way. They are just too narrow. If you are pushing a wheel barrow down any of those six streets and a vehicle is coming in the opposite direction, the vehicle will not be able to pass. The wheel barrow-pusher will have to push his way into the gutter to allow the car to pass, or the driver will have to fly over the pusher.
I don’t know if it is true what I heard about an incident in one of those streets. There are some humongous open-back trucks in Guyana with names like Tundra and Tacoma. I was told that a foreigner, not knowing how narrow those six streets are, turned his Tundra into one of them and heading in the opposite direction was a canter-truck. There was no collision because both machines flew over each other.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)