Government must put an end to this recklessness

Dec 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – The trend today all over the world is for the public pathways (streets, roads, highways, airports, bridges, etc) to be fitted out with surveillance cameras. Guyana has conformed to that trend.

The cameras stare down at me and I look up at them each time I am at the Eve Leary seawall with my dog. Countless houses and buildings in the entire land have these cameras.

These instruments have now become priceless. The hit-and-run drama is over in many parts of Georgetown because the cameras will detect the license plate of the hit-and-run driver. Here in Guyana dangerous driving has become an infection disease. This country has to be number one on a global list of terroristic drivers. Even if you are not a driver, you can see as a passenger or pedestrian how reckless are the people behind the wheel of a vehicle in this country. Before I come to drivers refusing to stop for pedestrians at the white-line crossing, which is the essence of this column, a little diversion is necessary.

Do you know an unadulterated manifestation of ugly nonsense has been occurring in this country for over 50 years and no one has the commonsense to stop it? Each year a vehicle owner has to go to selected police stations to get certificate of fitness.

The nearest station to where I live is Sparendam but the station there does not have a certifying officer. But why do you have to get the document for an old car much less a newer when it is irrelevant in the context of the causes of accidents in Guyana?

I am advancing the contention that the past 50 years, road crashes have not been caused by old cars that are road-unworthy. I am postulating that 100 percent of crashes over the past 50 years have involved vehicles that not old.

I am arguing that 100 percent of accidents on the road involve cars that are not older than ten years, especially fatalities that involve hire cars and private vehicles. Please do not take my word for it. Just spend a little time and Google road fatalities in Guyana and check the license plates of the vehicles that killed people.

So what causes crashes in Guyana? Here is my list in sequential order. One is a mentality that is primitive. I am talking about a stupid person that has a flawed mind. Two – excessive speeding. Three- drunk driving. Four – fast driving that does not allow for safe maneuvering on roads that have frightening potholes. The age of the vehicle is completely irrelevant. So why force people to have a certificate of fitness?

I come now to the need of the Government to use the surveillance cameras to arrest and charge the morons that have access to a vehicle in this county. There are three pedestrian crossings that I use more than once a day.

They are; the one in front of the CARICOM Secretariat on the Railway Embankment, the other is outside Movie Towne on the Atlantic highway, and the third is just before you enter the roundabout on the seawall travelling west on the Kitty Public Road.

Sadly, I am going to cause people to die senselessly because I always stop at these points when pedestrians are waiting to cross. But the drivers behind me going in the same direction but on the parallel lane do not.

My duty is to stop with my hazard signal on when persons are on the crossing. I hope all the time that vehicles coming behind me in the other lane stop too. They have to because it a pedestrian crossing and there is a car in front of them with the hazard light blinking.

I write here boldly without fear of contradiction that 99 percent of the drivers do not stop at the pedestrian crossing outside Movie Towne even though there are dozens of employees from that business place waiting to go over the road to catch a bus.

Please believe me! I say once again; drivers do not observe the pedestrian crossing outside Movie Towne on the Atlantic highway and there is the frightening danger that when you stop, they just pass you ignoring the hazard light on your car and people can die. It is time the police force use the surveillance cameras to arrest these drivers. Do not ticket them but charge them so they have to go to court. It is a small step in the confrontation with the disease of reckless driving. People are going to die outside Movie Towne when we can prevent it.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)