Road fatalities

Last Friday Police Commissioner (ag) Clifton Hicken summoned his senior regional Traffic Officers to Eve Leary for a meeting. A photograph from the police showed them sitting grim-faced around the table with the Commissioner at their head, although what they said to him, if anything, was not revealed. What he said to them, however, was conveyed in the accompanying press release. Mr Hicken apparently told them that “the prevailing traffic lawlessness will not be allowed to continue by the force’s hierarchy” while he berated them for their “lapses and underperformance as well as that of the ranks under their command …” This is not the first time that the traffic chiefs have been told that further ‘lawlessness’ on the roads will not be countenanced; it is a lecture, one would have thought, that had become almost routine over the years.

The efforts which have been made in the past to address the anarchy on our streets have always taken the form of temporary campaigns: speeding motorists were held, minibus drivers monitored and an impressive number of offenders placed before the courts, but when the brief campaign came to its inevitable end everything slid back to the way it was before. But things are much worse today than they were then. First there are far more vehicles on the road than ever used to be the case. In a letter to this newspaper yesterday a writer pointed out how choked up Georgetown had become in terms of traffic, with traditionally little-used roads now becoming much frequented thoroughfares. And then there is the fact that there are simply more roads. And these are not little byways; they are four-lane highways which seemingly represent an irresistible temptation for our more reckless motorists, not to mention motorcyclists, to engage in speeding.

It might be remarked in passing that if all drivers guilty of speeding, careless driving and the like were to be charged, the magistrates’ courts might seize up.

The genesis of this latest bout of perturbation over the situation on the roads is the increase in the number of fatalities which totalled 18 for this year as opposed to 16 for the same period last year. The Commissioner will have to upgrade those figures. The day before he spoke to the officers it was reported that a Stanleytown man had died after crashing his car into a culvert at Belle Vue on the West Bank. Three days later two died after the driver lost control of his vehicle which then overturned and ended up in a nearby trench at No. 19 Village Corentyne. After the accident it was reported that there was a dead cow on the road and a pile of sand on one side. It can only be surmised that the initial cause of the crash was the car striking the cow, another case of irresponsible

farmers allowing their animals to wander on the roadways. The worst fatal accident, however, occurred the day after that when four people died in a crash involving a minibus and lorry at Greenwich Park East Bank Essequibo. The police said that the lorry was travelling east along the public road at a fast rate approaching a pedestrian crossing, while the minibus was headed in the opposite direction. They went on to say that the lorry driver claimed that a black car ahead of him had made a sudden stop at the crossing and he had applied brakes and swerved to the right to avoid hitting the car, colliding with the right side of the minibus in the process. A witness, however, described how she had seen the truck trying to overtake another vehicle and then hitting the bus. Whatever the case, speeding was certainly a causal factor in relation to the crash, which it probably was too in the other two accidents cited. The police know that speeding is a major cause of serious accidents, since they recite it (along with alcohol) as a reason for the high figures almost on an annual basis. So the public has some interest in what this Commissioner is proposing to do about it. They might be forgiven if they were not too impressed by his approach.

He certainly warned his officers that there would be “consequences for underperforming”, although exactly how seriously they took that threat can only be guessed at. What matters is what practical directives he gave them. The release said he had instructed that traffic ranks should be stretched along the road corridors as a preventative method to slow down vehicles. Whether the Force has the numbers to do this effectively is the first question which comes to mind, along with the matter of how they are going to accomplish it if they don’t have speed guns, or don’t have enough of them, as seems almost certain. Charging someone for speeding requires evidence, and traffic ranks stretched along the roads with no technological equipment will not be able to have much impact.

Where this is concerned it might be noted that developed societies install speed cameras on their multi-lane highways, and one wonders why the government which boasts of taking Guyana to a ‘modern’ future is not looking at this option. They are expensive to run and monitor, certainly, but considering all the vast sums the administration is spending on new roads, it is difficult to understand why it is not moving in this direction, instead of depending exclusively on an undermanned police force with certain ingrained problems.

That aside, Mr Hicken ordered that enforcement must be done day and night, a relevant instruction since it is unusual to see a police officer on the road after 7 pm. The release said he also encouraged his senior officers to make use of the resources of the Force such as bikes and vehicles to help curb the rising number of road fatalities and road lawlessness. Citizens can only express surprise that the police have resources which they are not using, or not using effectively, when they have traditionally complained about the lack of vehicles, in particular, hampering them in the discharge of their duties.

What the Commissioner did not address was something which the public knows all too much about, and that is corruption. In a letter to this newspaper recently, retired Assistant Commissioner Paul Slowe did discuss it, but only one aspect of it, and that was what he called the widespread corruption in the learner driver programme. Citing examples from the Audit & Inspection Unit of the Police Force, and charges brought against officials and others involved in drivers’ licence scams he argued it was time that the government established a Department of Transportation to deal with issues related to the acquisition of drivers’ licences, driving schools, and certifying officers, among other things.

While his points have validity, it is not the whole story. Perhaps Commissioner Hicken was even making an implied reference to the problem when he told his Traffic Officers that the constant stopping of motorists asking for documents must cease unless it is being supervised by an officer. As every citizen who drives a motor vehicle well knows, the habit of stopping for documents is a potential avenue for getting the infamous ‘raise’, although any infraction in relation to the traffic laws can serve the same purpose.

The culture of the ‘raise’ is endemic in the traffic section, and every new police recruit learns their first lesson in corruption there. It has been going on for so many years, added to which too many drivers accede to it, especially those on the minibuses, that it will not be easy to stamp out. What it leads to, however, is a general sense that there are no rules on the road, and that anyone can do what they like – and they do. There are no consequences for speeding, for example, other than in the case of a serious accident, of which there are now far too many.

The general perception is that corruption permeates the Police Force, and while where road lawlessness is concerned there are various things which need to be tackled, on their own they will not achieve the results acting Commissioner Hicken is looking for. Underneath it all the matter of corruption has to be confronted. “We must get this fixed,” he was quoted as saying in relation to the high number of road fatalities. He shouldn’t hold his breath.