The case of the disappearing shoulder

Mar 07, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – There is a scene in The Good Doctor where Lea convinces Shaun to try something called “burning tires.” The idea, she explains is to press the brake while flooring the accelerator so the tires get burnt from spinning on the road while being unable to move forward. It is, apparently, a maneuver designed to produce excitement, smoke, and the sudden realization that physics is not merely a suggestion.

Shaun gets carried away and continues until the car spins off onto the shoulders of the road. Lea reassures him with a line that deserves to be engraved on every Ministry of Public Works and City Council document: the whole purpose of a road shoulder is to provide a buffer zone.

A buffer zone.

Now, this concept is fascinating to us in Guyana because, judging by the current state of affairs along the East Bank and East Coast Public Roads, we appear to have reinterpreted the term. In Guyana, a road shoulder is not a buffer zone. It is a commercial opportunity.

If the shoulder is wide enough, it becomes a fruit market. If it is slightly narrower, it becomes a sno-cone outlet. If there is enough entrepreneurial spirit, it becomes a furniture showroom, a tyre repair shop, a coconut stand, and—if God is particularly generous—a barbecue operation producing smoke dense enough to guide ships through fog.

The road shoulder, in other words, has been liberated from its oppressive past as a safety feature and reimagined as a thriving free-market ecosystem.

A few nights ago, a sno-cone cart was smashed to pieces by a hit-and-run vehicle. Now, there will naturally be debates. Some will argue the driver was reckless. Others will argue the cart was too close to the roadway. But a more philosophical question arises: why was the sno-cone cart there at all?

A road shoulder exists for moments of emergency—when a driver must swerve to avoid a collision, when a vehicle breaks down, when the unexpected happens. It is supposed to be the automotive equivalent of a deep breath.

But imagine needing to swerve suddenly and discovering that your emergency buffer zone has been replaced by a watermelon dealership.

Suddenly the choice becomes existential: do you collide with the vehicle ahead or plough through a fruit vendor who is aggressively marketing papayas?

This is not the sort of decision most drivers wish to make and should not have to make. And this is precisely why the road shoulders should be free of encumbrances.

Yet along many of our public roads the opposite is precisely the situation we have engineered. Vendors set up stalls on pavements. Customers stop to buy fruit, coconuts, and other items essential to the national diet. Their vehicles then occupy sections intended for cyclists and motorcyclists. Traffic slows, swerves, and negotiates an obstacle course.

Recently, just south of the roundabout leading onto the Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara River Bridge, a canter truck was selling watermelons at a point where traffic converges before entering the roundabout. Nothing says “efficient traffic management” like motorists braking suddenly while someone weighs produce on a scale.

Then there is the railway embankment from Ogle to UG Road, now proudly a four-lane carraiageway. In theory, it is a modern transport corridor designed to move vehicles efficiently.

In practice, it is frequently reduced to two lanes because businesses line the roadway and their customers park along the sides, gently occupying the outer lanes like guests who arrived early and decided to stay indefinitely.

Billions of dollars were spent to construct that road, but apparently nobody budgeted for the national instinct to turn every available space into a parking lot.

We Guyanese possess a remarkable entrepreneurial spirit. Give us a patch of land and a cooler of drinks and we can create an economy in under ten minutes.

Unfortunately, we also possess the equally remarkable belief that the best place to conduct this economy is directly beside high-speed traffic.

This is where the authorities must intervene, because the situation has reached a point where the sides of our public roads are evolving into full-scale commercial zones. Road shoulders are disappearing. Pavements are becoming produce aisles. Cycle lanes are being repurposed as customer parking.

The solution is not complicated. Businesses should be encouraged to operate within designated commercial zones located safely inside villages and communities. Roads should be for vehicles. Pavements should be for pedestrians. Road shoulders should remain emergency space.

Of course, this idea will not please everyone. Landowners along the highways—those members of the bourgeois class who have invested heavily in roadside property—will object strenuously. After all, nothing enhances real estate value quite like a steady stream of motorists slowing down to buy fruits, bread and dog food.

But public roads are not private business corridors. They are infrastructure designed for movement and safety.

If we continue down the current path, the next stage of development will likely involve drive-through boutiques in the middle of roundabouts and coconut vendors operating from traffic lights.

And at that point, even Lea from The Good Doctor might admit that perhaps the buffer zone deserves a little respect.

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

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• burning tires, disappearing, Peeping Tom, shoulder, The Good Doctor

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