This could only happen in Trinidad

THE EDITOR: An incident happened in St James on Wednesday January 21 2004 that in any civilised country would be considered totally ridiculous. Between 2 - 2.30 pm an accident occurred on Mucurapo Road in front of Fatima College Building. The drivers of both vehicles, instead of marking the spot where the accident occurred and removing the cars to the side of the road, left the vehicles in the middle of the road and proceeded to jump up and berate each other like a pair of baboons. As expected there was an instant traffic jam as parents, friends and family were picking up the students who had just left classes at the end of the school day.

That in itself is a cause for daily traffic congestion but add to that the senseless conduct of two cretinous motorists and voila — total confusion.
There was I, and the driver of our vehicle stuck in this gridlock. To make matters worse, motorists including truck drivers stopped in the vicinity of the accident to give their opinions as to the fault/liability of the respective drivers. At least 25 minutes went by and suddenly a SUV (sports utility vehicle) whizzed by to the left of our vehicle. We were in the westbound lane which was at a standstill so the SUV was driven partly on the pavement and partly on the grass verge. School children from the nearby schools scampered out of the way to avoid serious injuries or worse. The driver of the SUV turned out to be a senior police officer rushing to the accident scene to restore order. Little did it matter that he almost wiped out a few school children. Who knows they may have been deviant school kids and deserved that fate (the sarcasm is mine).

Another 15 long minutes elapsed and my vehicle inched its way to the immediate scene of the accident (one could tell from the “crash debris”). The cars were still in the middle of the road but by now Mr SUV and a couple of police officers were on the scene. There was still room for the west bound traffic to squeeze past the crash scene, so again the drivers of the east bound vehicles forced their way into the west bound lane and proceeded to bulldoze their way through. Another ten minutes elapsed and our car was almost in a position to pass the obstruction when an east bound car forced its way into our path and came face to face with our car. No one could move. The driver of our car spoke to Mr SUV about what was happening but was promptly told to mind his own business.

Then a police officer came up to our vehicle and ordered the driver to reverse so that the idiot who had trespassed into our lane could go on his merry way. In other words the idiot was being rewarded for his unlawful conduct. What seemed like 10 minutes went by as other cars were allowed to maneouvre into our west bound lane while we had to sit and wait. Finally, the police officer waved us through. As I looked back Mr SUV and the police officers were still “directing” traffic, the offending cars were still in the middle of the road and the traffic jam had moved from confusion to total chaos. I am still wondering, apart from  this land of calypso, Cro Cro and cretins where else would this happen?

M HOTIN
St James