J’can road terrorists

THE EDITOR, Sir:

IAM certainly not going to shadow my brakes on this one; driving in Jamaica is absolute hell! Between the aggressive, impatient honking of the horns, to the illegal, reckless, sudden stops and undisciplined drivers forcing themselves in front of law-abiding motorists in a line of traffic, I really don’t know how the accident rate isn’t much higher.

Where did this total disregard for the law originate from, and why has it been perpetuated? The atrocities that are witnessed on the roads on a daily basis are simply mind-boggling. Several of these atrocities occur in the presence of those who committed themselves to upholding the law, aka police officers. Sadly, sometimes these very same officers are perpetrators themselves. If law enforcers blatantly refuse to adhere to the laws of the land, then what message is being sent to the mere citizens?

The main culprits of creating the greatest mayhem on the Jamaican roads are taxi and bus drivers. These road terrorists have absolutely no sense of the road code. In fact, it is hard to fathom that they have ever heard of the term. All evidence reflects that it is indeed a foreign concept to these drivers who, on a daily basis, are responsible for transporting our country’s most precious cargo, its citizens. What is the most troubling, though, is that the Government seems to be oblivious to these transport operators’ atrocities and are doing very little to curb the increasing indiscipline on these Jamaican streets. It seems even they have accepted the havoc that these drivers wreak daily.

Why is it that the same undisciplined Jamaican driver will go overseas and fall in line almost immediately? Structure. Proper structure is a by-product of careful and diligent governance. There needs to be effective laws to curb bad behaviour and, most important, there must be adequate monitoring to ensure that the laws are abided by. If laws are left unmonitored, what occurs is equivalent to a parent who does not discipline her child.

The incident that occurred last week in Half-Way Tree where a taxi operator hit two citizens while they were walking on the sidewalk is just the tip of the iceberg. Until the Government decides to take serious steps to deal with these road terrorists, driving in Jamaica will continue to be HELL, and unless you drive like the devil, you will not survive.

TAMAIR123