FIJI’S ROADS

Te Anau, NZ

One only needs to spend time overseas for a year to realise how dangerous it is to be on Fiji’s roads.

I’ve lived my whole life in Fiji, worked in the media and despite covering stories of road deaths or being first-hand information receivers of road accidents before the news is disseminated to members of the public, I never thought of how dangerous our roads were.

One year away, came home for a visit in June, two months at home made me realise how dangerous our roads really are because of drivers who tend to drive and use the roads as a race track or because they felt they can do whatever they want on our roads because no one is watching.

I have seen Government vehicle drivers who do not follow road rules, passing other vehicles on roads marked with double solid white lines, and this was the same for many other drivers in private vehicles and PSV vehicles.

Buses carrying school children who would pop their heads out of the bus windows just to watch the scenery they look at every day as they go along the same road.

I asked my husband to stop near the bus driver’s window as he was dropping off some students from a village in the Western Division, where I told him to ask the students in his bus to stop popping their heads out of the windows because I was worried someone might get into an accident, and his reply was “They are like that every day, they are hooligans”. I feared for my life and that of my children whenever I was in the car and a sigh of relief would come when I would reached my destination safe and sound.

If everyone plays it safe, then our roads would be safe. One safe driver cannot be safe on the road if another driver is not following the road rules. If teaching begins from home, parents please teach your children to not do things to risk their lives. Teach them to sit still in the bus and wait for their turn to get off instead of popping their heads out of the bus windows. If teaching begins from home, wife/mother remind your husbands/ children and vice versa every day of the lives in his/her hands, not only of his/her passengers, but of those in other vehicles and other road users as he sits behind the wheel. If teaching begins from home, please teach the importance of being safe not only for our own good, but for other road users too. Highlight a wrong when you see it.

If the Police and the Land Transport Authority officers cannot be on every road in the country, let’s learn to police ourselves, let’s not wait for accidents to happen to make us feel obliged to speak our mind then. Do what is right, Fiji! Let’s be safe! VUNIWAQA BOLA-BARI is our second Letter of the Week winner for the month of September