Worldwide, road accidents are a significant cause of death, injury and anguish, and Guyana is one such country where it is glaringly and unfortunately so very evident. It is always a deep tragedy when a productive, much-loved and respected citizen dies in the prime of his or her life.
The death of Chief Librarian Gillian Thompson is one such occasion – an occasion in which it has been alleged that dangerous driving played a significant role.
Dangerous driving has become a terrifying and all too common trend in Guyana, as both licensed and unlicensed drivers go out every day on our roads, seemingly with little to no regard for the responsibility they must bear once they get behind the wheels of a vehicle that could weigh upwards of around two tonnes.
Impatient and uncivil to the point of being brutish, many of our current drivers should not be allowed to drive on our small and congested streets. But the reality is that such persons are allowed and do – some even if they aren’t allowed. How any logical, clear-thinking person can assume they know how to operate a two-tonne vehicle without prior training is, for the rational of society, quite unimaginable.
And that is only one violation of many that occur on a daily basis on Guyana’s roads. Clearly, Guyanese need a sterner education on the importance and significance of being in control of a vehicle that can so easily kill a, by comparison, frail fellow human being, when an irresponsible individual sits behind its wheels.
It has been said ad nauseam, but must be said again – part of the problem is that there is clearly a need for our licensing procedures to be reviewed and restructured, rather than produce the knee-jerk reaction of merely proposing stiffer penalties.
Punishment after the fact should work along with laws that prevent such crimes before they occur. With allegations of corruption always present, there is also the necessity for anti-corruption policies so that persons found trying to bypass lawful licensing procedures should also receive stiffer penalties.
This may serve to assure the Guyanese public that our law enforcement officers have our safety at heart rather than their own economic gain.
As the new year begins with the heartbreak and tragedy of vehicular homicide in our midst, it should be a wake-up call for all concerned that current traffic and licensing policies are clearly not working and continue to be the cause of so much carnage on the roads.
Guyanese are obviously not paying attention to educational programmes or driving with consideration for their fellow Guyanese. According to news reports, last year’s road death figures were by November already well over 100. In a country of few roads and fewer people than many countries have in a town, such statistics are frightening.
Like the blight of garbage dumping, dangerous driving appears to be a national attitude that unfortunately paints Guyanese in not very bright colours, but rather in hues of incivility which, like a bad cough, is apparently not easy to get rid of.
All the laws in the world may not curb such coarse behaviours, and what may also be urgently needed is a steady education from nursery to tertiary, and perhaps even in the workplace, on the importance of responsibility to ourselves and our society when we choose to drive.
Anarchy, which can arguably describe the conditions on our roads today, is the antithesis of what should prevail in a civilised society. It also forms the basis for all societies to develop civilised mores and laws.
Therefore, we should see the human tragedy that our lawless traffic situation is producing on our roads and strive to find suitable solutions that will drastically reduce the cries of so many widows, widowers, and bereft parents, siblings and children that our out-of-control drivers are creating.
