Menace to society – drivers and who else?

Dec 07, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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…Hard Truths

By GHK Lall

 Kaieteur News- The first early Thursday morning media stop was at SN, where there were two letters commenting on the horrors of Guyana’s roads.  On that same 21^st day of November, the second stop at KN noted three letters, with repeats from SN.  There is pain and loss, anger and horror at what goes on Guyana’s roads.  Busy roads.  Clogged roads.  Dangerous roads.

A long time ago, fingers were pointed at some deep bend, or straightaway, with dreadful whispers following -there’s a dangerous corner or a dangerous stretch.  It sounds quaint, part of some hazy, best forgotten era in Guyana’s road journey.  There are more kilometres today, and with each new one, it seems that a ‘christening’ is almost par for the course -a killing or a maiming.  The gods of local roads are impatient, and they need to be appeased.

The obvious is overwhelming in its various presences.  Recklessness and speeding.  A don’t-give-a-damn attitude.  Young drivers, older drivers, male and female drivers, leaners and veteran drivers have been overtaken, for a good part, by demons.  Something is chasing them, or they are chasing some holy grail.

The hard questions that I often ask myself and now put before fellows are these: has Guyana mutated into this free-for-all society? One where anything goes?  Especially if a dangerous driver knows a ‘big one’?  One where many Guyanese are in a race to oblivion (for themselves or others)?

Those hard questions lead to this hard truth: is it because of the cavalier disregard for rules and standards by leaders and ministers that some of that has gushed down on other Guyanese, who try their best imitation of follow the leader?  I think so. If they [leaders] can do what they do so brazenly in so many areas of Guyanese life and get away with their excesses, then why not MeToo?

I go further and think that the blanket of frustrations has become so suffocating that too often too many Guyanese have resorted to resignation.  Whatever will be will be (wha cum suh duh).  Therefore, they throw caution to the winds and take matters into their own hands by repeatedly rolling the dice.  On the roads.  In their cars and SUVs.  Oh, and those trucks and minibuses and taxis, all hustling to get an edge for that precious centimetre of space.

To continue with the clichés that are so much part of everyday reality on Guyana’s roads, the dice is rolled and matters come down to the odds of being caught, the luck of the draw.  What is the probability of a police patrol on foot or on wheels?  Then what is the likelihood of being stopped and set straight with the straightest application of traffic laws and rules?  I assert that it is a case of where the road culture is so upside down, the knowledge is so widespread, that the system will be gamed with the grease of a thousand or five, and it is on the way with no real penalty paid, no lesson learned?  A serious injury or a fatality has one utility, one call to duty.  Increased payoff.  One letter contributor lamented the presence of the police in either motorized or manpower form, but it is as if they are not there.  Or, as I’m now saying, there but no more than sleeping policemen.  The ones that are part of the concrete and asphalt roadwork and just as competent at thinking or reacting.

Whether there is agreement or not, it is clear that many drivers are a menace to Guyanese society.  The associated concern is whether the men of the law on the scene do not represent an equivalent menace.  By their unconcern.  By their stoic indifference.  By their glacial inaction.  Even glaciers move, however slowly, painfully.

Unsurprisingly, the reckless of drivers poses great danger to other road users.  But it can also be posited that the twin to that is the irresponsibility and lethargy in law enforcement men and women on the job and in plain sight.  Abandoning duty is as good as encouraging.  And some Guyanese need no encouragement.

Low morale may be a contributing factor, with present police troubles deepening the already pervasive malaise.  Pride in the sterling efforts of principled policemen and women is in short supply.  Pay is a problem; long and bitter it has been.  So, police ranks shrug and set their eyes on just signing in and then set their eyes on the clock.  I believe that it is a case of the trickledown effect cascading in different forms from the heights.  They are asked to walk a straight line and hold the line, while seniors in the organization and those governing it from the political arena, chart their own paths that are anything but straight.  Or that braces anyone and anything, other than themselves.

After all the wood and stone and steel nailed, glued, and welded together to erect lovely structures, this society is falling apart where it matters the most.  Its people.  Its national character.  Its pride in itself.  Drivers are blamed.  Law enforcement ostracized.  Governance mocked.  Leadership scorned.  The human element is that demented.  The dangers begin at the top, the menaces multiply below.  Road use, one of the emblems of a country, its citizenry, and their civility, stands as Exhibit 1. Let there be that honesty.  Just this once.

(Menace to society – drivers and who else?)

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• drivers and who else?, Guyanese, hard truths, Menace to society

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