Two cops, a female driver and a traffic shakedown in broad daylight

Dear Editor,

I share an incident involving two traffic ranks from last Monday for the education of the Guyana Police Force brass (especially the Traffic Chief and its watchful PRO); other drivers (particularly those not yet similarly touched); and all other Guyanese (mainly those concerned with standards and justice). It stands as a casebook study of so many things under the surface, never reported, many times denied and then delivered again and again in all the other interactions in this preyed-upon place.

The two young, junior officers pulled over a female driver, the sole occupant of a private passenger vehicle, this Monday past. The driver had just negotiated, from an easterly direction, the turn at the stoplight of Carifesta Avenue and Camp Road, while proceeding in a now southern direction. It is just after midday and almost directly opposite the authoritative appearing Police Training School located on the western side of Camp Road. Each officer positioned himself on either side the two front doors of the vehicle. The windows were all the way up. At the signal of the officer on the driver’s side, the woman lowered her window, and shared her anxiety at the positioning of the other rank on the other side, since both could not be observed simultaneously.

Editor, the first thing to note here is that a lone female citizen is uncertain and untrusting of two men in police uniform in broad light and steady traffic. Such is the degree of suspicion over authenticity and credibility in this society, which ensuing developments were quick to confirm. The second officer standing by the front passenger door came around to the driver’s side. It was time for business.

The official pronouncement was of driver violation for “red light ran” and the necessity of the offender having to “go to court.” Matters were now out in the open in the overture of this most professionally imparted, very subtlest, of the impending: the threatening gloom in the wellschooled, well-rehearsed, and wellperformed recital of long familiar lines.

The response from the driver was firm disagreement and insistence on checking her dashcam. Quicker than a flash there came the now less menacing, but still hopeful: “what if it confirms that the red light was ran?” Then it is to the courts, came the driver’s reply. The once, supposedly traffic breaching driver was immediately waved off in an attempt at hurried closure of a traffic shakedown that did not follow the usual script. It is yet another example that points to what really goes on without interruption on our roads, our criminal

The really critical matter is that the major causes of our fatal accidents have not changed since last year or the year before that − or many years before that. As said above, the two primary ones are DUI combined with speeding, and these, said Superintendent Isles, accounted for almost 90% of them. Between October 5 and November 4, this newspaper reported on several deaths caused by DUI and/or speeding. They included a twentyfour-year-old mother of four hit by a drunken driver on the East Bank; two Lindeners who died in a head-on collision in Amelia’s Ward; a young driver who crashed into a parked vehicle on the East Coast road; an Essequibo resident who was struck by an alleged speeding car at Onderneeming; and another Essequibian fatally hit by an alleged drunken driver at Evergreen. The police have made little impact on the situation partly because they have never implemented a sustained approach to traffic violations – every approach inevitably involves a temporary campaign − partly because of the pernicious tradition of the ‘raise’ which is particularly prevalent in the Traffic section, and partly because Guyana’s finest are not themselves above reproach where contraventions of the Highway Code are concerned. The case cited earlier which ended in five deaths was caused by a speeding police vehicle, for example. But there is another underlying problem, and that is the alcohol culture of this society. In the days when there were few cars on the road, there were by definition fewer drunken drivers, although inebriation had consequences elsewhere in the society, such as on domestic violence rates. The problem is that so many people do not perceive driving under the influence as a true criminal offence. While getting into a car while staggering drunk will no doubt be perceived as something to be discouraged, there are stages before that is reached where imbibing will have impaired judgement and compromised driving skills, yet these earlier states do not attract

inquiries (perhaps, largely) in a country profaned and deficient at all levels. For emphasis, at all levels.

Editor, there are several points I now wish to make using this latest instance of GPF vulgarity as context. What if there was no dashcam? What if the dashcam did indicate that there was a violation? What if this was a vehicle operator willing, as is customary, to reach not for official papers, but for Bank of Guyana issued paper? Those are not rhetorical questions; the answers should shame every living and compromised police manager, and every tainted, elected Guyanese political presence, of whom too many exist from both groups

Editor, I submit that the GPF has the longest of roads ahead to overcome the ills and evils that overwhelm, and which are now so reflective of the norm, of the near terminal. I recognize that improvements have been made, but do they matter? There they were: two of the most junior ranks, but already wellgroomed in the roles and riches of their calling made swindling. It could be from contemporary conversation; stationhouse intelligence, indoctrination, and culture; or the sergeant at the desk waiting to play a part in the charade, while licking their lips in anticipation of the daily

very much if any attention. Drinking is the recreation of choice for a large segment of the population of whatever race and class. Changing the culture so that drivers decide not to get behind a wheel if they have more than a certain alcohol level in their bloodstream will not be an easy task. One suspects too that the police themselves think nothing of having a drink or two before switching on the ignition in their own vehicles, and are hardly likely therefore to challenge the ordinary citizen on those grounds. It is simply, as said before, a reflection of the culture. British drivers are nowadays very careful to drink only very small amounts or not at all before they clamber into their cars. If they are looking for a night of carousing, they invariably make sure they have a designated driver or head home by taxi or some other form of public transport. However, it was not always so. It took a fairly lengthy, consistent campaign by the police armed with breathalysers which could test drivers on the roadside and then take them to court if they were in default, before changes in habits started to be evinced. Significantly there was not a word from the Traffic Chief about what programme his Department was working on to reduce the number of fatalities caused by DUI. A reduction in these cases would also impact the speeding problem to some extent. As it was, his figures ended with November 10. While one would hope to be proven wrong, it is hard to avoid the feeling that only an irredeemable optimist would believe we will completely escape accidents caused by drunken driving over the Christmas season.

returns from the road’s cash registers long known.

Now I move from the predatory pathways and polluted precincts. For every innocent road user waylaid and intimidated by the police with the calculated threat of hauling before the courts, there is waste and worse. Waste of the precious time of an overburdened magistracy; waste of innocent citizens’ resources and goodwill; waste through the malfeasances that intensify the norms of what is now standard police operations. Efforts of the clean and conscientious few suffer, are overlooked.

I share that one likely worsening is visible through the unconcern of uniformed outriders and stationary ranks to the palpable wrongdoings and dangers on roadways. They are too occupied with seeking out targets of opportunity; the newer vehicles introduce the greater likelihood of the Guyanese equivalent of stop-and-frisk. It is why midnight-tinted vehicles, the helmetless, and the endangering hogs are mostly left alone. There is the institutional wisdom that easier, richer pickings wait from those other Guyanese available for hostage taking. How many miscarriages? Exploitations? How many matters that cry out for the policing hand of genuine justice, only to end up untouched, unanswered, and unresolved?

On the side of justice, this is merely a sliver of what must be the now countless injustices (not only about traffic) that plague and blight Guyanese existence, this grandest of national frauds.

Yours faithfully,

GHK Lall