Maths gone wild on the Public Road

Jan 30, 2026 Dem Boys Seh, Features / Columnists

(Kaieteur News) – Dem boys seh traffic is no longer a matter for drivers alone — is now a full-blown mathematics problem, and sadly, the answer always wrong. Take a simple example. One hundred cars, nice-nice, moving slow-slow in two lanes, stretching 500 metres. Everybody crawling along at about 10 miles per hour. Simple sum: just under two minutes and yuh free. Painful, yes, but predictable.

But then comes the bright spark. Somebody discover a third lane that don’t really exist. Suddenly another 50 cars appear, undertaking on the left, the right, the shoulder, anywhere asphalt look lonely. Dem boys seh this is where the maths turn wicked.

See, every time one of those 50 cars force itself back into the original lane, the whole line does a lil braking exercise. One car slows, ten behind it tap brakes, and before you know it, the traffic wave travelling backwards faster than good sense leaving Parliament. Mathematically speaking, if each illegal merge causes even a one-second hesitation, and that hesitation ripple through the line, yuh end up adding seconds on top of seconds.

By the time yuh finish counting, the original two minutes become four. Same 500 metres. Same destination. Double the suffering. Do de maths and yuh gun see how much delays undertaking traffic does cause!

Dem boys seh this is the only country where adding lanes actually increases travel time. Abroad, more lanes mean progress. Here, more lanes mean more creative lawlessness. Which brings dem boys to the next calculation: enforcement divided by reality equals zero. The police and the cameras not even capturing a fraction of the undertaking going on. Take the approach to Mon Repos Market, east going west. As yuh approach, the road widens like temptation. Drivers start undertaking like it’s a national sport. Left, right, anywhere but behind.

Yet, dem boys seh, no camera there. Not one. No rank stationed to stop the madness either. The ranks that are there busy directing traffic across the junction, while fifty cars slipping past illegally like ghosts. Everybody seeing it. Nobody stopping it.

Dem boys seh if traffic violations were votes, Mon Repos Market junction would decide elections. But since violations don’t count unless a camera blinking or a rank riding by on a motorcycle, the undertakers win every time. So the maths is simple, dem boys seh: more illegal lanes plus zero enforcement equals double traffic and triple frustration. And somehow, we still surprised every morning.

Talk half. Leff half.

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braking, Dem Boys Seh, Maths, Public Road

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