Consultation or endorsement?

Jan 04, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Not sure whether what the President wants is a consultation or an endorsement of the ideas he already has in his head about how to address road carnage. When it comes to the PPPC, genuinely listening to what people say is a big task, except if those persons are their friends and cronies.

Under Bharrat Jagdeo, there used to be something called a National Stakeholders Forum. It was summoned conveniently and infrequently when the government was under siege and needed the stakeholders support.  But after the storm clouds had blown over, it was back to business as usual. The stakeholders were relegated to obscurity.

It was therefore not much of a surprise to learn that President Irfaan Ali wants to convene a meeting of national stakeholders to discuss the situation of our roads. And it was not surprising to learn that the President already has a few ideas which he wants to put to the stakeholders: including some device that would limit the speed at which vehicles such as minibuses and trucks travel.

What the country needs is not that sort of sham process. What the country needs is an informed process of consultation on the safety on our roadways.

For there to be an informed consultation, there first has to be a study of road accidents across Guyana. Major policy decisions such as imposing speed-restricting devices on certain vehicles cannot be arbitrary.

It is interesting that the President is toying with the idea of having these devices on public transport vehicles and trucks. While trucks have been involved in a number of accidents of recent, mini-buses have been less involved than they used to. In fact, judging from the recent reports in the media, it would appear as if speeding private vehicles are the main contributors to road accidents.

But without a proper study that too would be mere conjecture. This is all the more reason why having a study of road trends is so necessary; it would provide an empirical basis to support the measures which the government will propose during the consultations.

The study should look at the total number of accidents, the main causes, the age of the drivers involved in both serious and fatal accidents – a great many young drivers are dying on our roads – the roadways where there are more serious accidents, the time when most accidents take place, the incidence of accidents involving persons who are driving under the influence etc.

If for example it is found that young male drivers are a high-risk group for accidents, then it will be necessary for measures to target that group such as higher insurance premiums and a longer period of instruction for them.

If overtaking is a major contributory factor to road accidents, then engineering solutions will have to be devised. Years ago, CARIFESTA Avenue in Georgetown used to have a number of fatal accidents. To its credit, since the APNU+AFC erected a median along that road, the serious accidents have declined considerably.

Medians can be extremely helpful to reducing accidents along sections of the East Bank Public Road, the West Demerara Public Road, Essequibo Coast Public Road, the West Coast Public Road, the East Corentyne Public Road.

On the other hand since the construction of four lane roads, serious road accidents have increased. So are these roads a major contributor to road accidents?

There are also concerns about poor and defective road lighting, the use of electric bikes by under-aged and uncertified drivers. Many of the road lights are much too high on the lantern posts.  In some countries screens are being used to prevent high beams from vehicles traveling in the opposite direction from affecting the visibility of drivers.

The government cannot continue to spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars to build a four-lane roadways, only for them to be reduced to two lanes because the business class wants parking on the roadways for their customers.

You cannot be spending billions of dollars on four-lane roads, only for there to be junctions every 200-400 meters, as is the case on the East Coast, simply because the entire four-lane highway is crisscrossed with intersections at every village. There needs to be only a few points at which traffic can merge, from the villages, onto the highways – this calls for more feeder roads.

The point is that the national stakeholders can come up with a thousand suggestions as to how to curb accidents and deaths. But whatever is done has to be supported by empirical evidence. This is why before the President does anything he should commission a study to look at the data which exist, and from this data to develop a draft policy paper.

This draft policy paper will then become a discussion paper for the consultation. In this way the discussions can be truly said to be a consultation and not a rubber-stamping of what the government wants.

(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.)

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• Consultation, endorsement, National Stakeholders Forum, Peeping Tom, PPPC

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