National Road Safety Month in Guyana

Road sense is the offspring of courtesy and the parent of safety.
“National Road Safety Month” was launched on November 1 – coincidentally, the day before my 17th birthday. I was invited to deliver the Hindu prayer at the event. Since I’ll be hitting the roads soon (right Dad?), I think I listened quite a bit more attentively than I normally do at the goings on. (There was the nagging paranoia: Could the authorities be aware of my imminent foray into our highways and byways and were taking pre-emptive action?
But really, on the whole, the entire programme gave me lots to think about and on my return journey to school, I decided to actually pay attention to the people in the vehicles around me. With my headphones clamped over my ears, I’m normally oblivious to such peripheral matters. I wanted to see for myself whether there were people who were actually guilty of the lapses mentioned at the Road Safety Launch.
Quille surprise! There were probably more drivers breaking one traffic rule or another than there were law-abiding drivers. There were people speaking animatedly into their cellphones; people who obviously thought seatbelts were a bother; people furiously texting at 80 characters per second to match their speed of 80 km/h and of course, people overtaking and switching lanes like 007 James Bond (When will “Skyfall” hit Guyana, anyway?).
Pedestrians were as bad as the drivers of vehicles. Worse since they were not insulated by a sheath of metal. They blithely risked life and limb by walking into the driving lanes; darting across streets, walking with headphones on oblivious to everything else excepting possibly the music. Several had to be frantically pulled out the way of zooming vehicles.
Trust me: with my new awareness (yes, Dad) I think it’s pretty challenging having to manoeuvre your way through all of that chaos, (don’t talk about the honking!) all without ending up being shuttled off to a padded room.
But it also makes one ponder a bit about how casual people are with their lives – and worse, with other people’s lives. I mean it’s not to say that people should live their lives without ever taking risks but at the same time, we need to exercise caution. Life doesn’t have to be a perpetual game of ‘chicken’ or ‘dare-double dare’.
And clearly Guyanese aren’t being careful because for this year, there have been 83 accidents with 90 deaths – and we’re not done yet. That’s ninety less mothers or fathers or sons or aunts left in Guyana. That’s 90 more families who have to mourn for loved ones lost too soon, ninety more death anniversaries to commemorate, ninety more valuable people to shed tears over. Along with suicide, we’re way up there on the world’s per capita traffic fatality rates. Not laudatory statistics.
Everyone’s life is precious, but it’s a delicate balance and every once in a while some unforeseeable disaster strikes and the life is taken away – like with Sandy. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do our best to prevent the accidents we can prevent from happening.
People should value their lives, everyday, all the time. Even the gods desire a human body, says my religion.  Protect yours and others’ on the roads.