Latest update July 2nd, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 02, 2022 News
Kaieteur News – A mere two months have elapsed since the beginning of 2022 and sadly, more than a dozen persons have already lost their lives due to speeding vehicles, even unlicensed drivers, recklessly using the roadways.
To date, some 14 fatalities have been recorded and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) is once again, forced to warn road users, and motorists in particular, of the need to exercise extreme caution, care, courtesy, consideration and common sense – the five C’s of driving, especially during the rainy season when the roadways are wet and slippery.
Though the figure is quite alarming for just two months, it shows a decline when compared to deaths recorded during the same period for 2021. The Director of the Communications Unit of the GPF, Mark Ramoutar explained that some 20 deaths were documented for the same period, January to February last year.
POLICE HIGH SPEED CHASE
On February 2, 2022, what was supposed to be a simple journey for 21-year-old Christopher Bhagwandat and his 16-year-old girlfriend Sheereda Persaud to his mother’s abode to join her in her birthday celebration, ended in tragedy. The couple lost their lives in an accident following a high speed police chase.
According to reports, Bhagwandat left his Mon Repos home earlier that morning in his Toyota Allion to pick up his girlfriend from her home in Bath Settlement. His plan, according to a relative, was to take his girlfriend to his mother’s birthday celebration.
East Coast Police Commander, Khali Pareshram, said that ranks from the Region Five district were conducting a traffic operation in Mahaicony and had stopped Bhagwandat’s car at their road block along the New Zeeland Public Road. Bhagwandat, he told reporters, pulled over his car to the side of the road but as one of the ranks approached, he suddenly drove off.
The ranks, according to Pareshram, alerted a patrol vehicle attached to the Mahaicony Police Station and a pursuit began. While speeding across the Mahaica Bridge, both the force’s pick-up and Bhagwandat’s car slammed into the canter that was travelling in the opposite direction towards Berbice.
SPEEDING MOTORCYCLISTS
Kaieteur News previously reported that Dave Taylor, a 23-year-old man of Laluni Creek, Soesdyke-Linden Highway died tragically after he accidently rode his motorcycle into a pothole along the Laluni Access Road while returning home from an outing.
According to police, Taylor was speeding and had accidently rode into the pothole filled with water where he lost control of his bike.
Kaieteur News had noted in its report on this case that the road was dark and Taylor reportedly was unaware that the pothole was deep. After riding into the hole at a high rate of speed, both Taylor and his pillion rider were thrown from the motorcycle and landed on to the road.
Both persons were severely injured and were rushed to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre for treatment where, upon arrival, doctors revealed that Taylor was already dead.
Similarly, 19-year-old Elijah Profitt died only a short way from his Craig Street, Campbelleville residence after he ran into a truck while trying to save his cell phone. Profitt was riding without a helmet and after the bike swayed and slammed into the pick-up, the impact flung him unto the paved road. Police stated that the impact caused Profitt to receive injuries to his head and about his body and it is believed that he was killed on the spot.
“After he phone fall out he look back and by the time he look forward he was running off the road like and he tried to steer it back out but with the speed he went going with he lose control and the bike start sway and he slam into the vehicle”, a relative told Kaieteur News.
RAN OVER BY TRUCKS
Woman Special Corporal(SC), Dawn Booker and Porter Jomo Benjamin both lost their lives tragically in separate accidents after being run over by trucks. According to previous reports, Booker, a Special Corporal attached to the Small Business Bureau situated at Lot 1 Penitence Street, Georgetown was killed a short distance from where she worked.
In video footage of the accident that was previously seen by this newspaper, it was observed that Booker was proceeding south on the eastern parapet of the La Penitence public road. A male pedal cyclist was seen approaching from the opposite direction on the said parapet. When the two cyclists were about to cross paths, SC Booker, it appeared, the woman made a judgment call and swerved to the right, seemingly to prevent a collision with the man on the bike. As a result, she almost lost control of her cycle and fell and within moments a truck, which was heading in the same direction, appeared in the frame and ran over the upper portion of Booker’s body.
Benjamin, however met his demise when the motor lorry he was standing in collided with another truck while the driver was overtaking the vehicle, along the Soesdyke Linden Highway. As a result of the collision he fell out of the tray of the lorry and was run over, causing him to die.
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