SAVE US FROM OUR ROADS

So, the number of road fatalities in 2005 has reached 201 and still climbing — roughly one every 36 hours. Being among the world’s most lunatic drivers may explain such carnage. Maybe we lack road discipline, are anarchical or even have an excess of testosterone in the general population. But one certain contributing factor is that we are not properly instructed in how to use the roads. And another, more important, factor is that our roads are unsafe. By any reckoning road fatalities are too high given the size of the population, just as the murder rate is. Yet, we are not all clamouring for something to be done, the opposition and the independent senators are not haranguing the government, demanding a reduction in the number of vehicles, and we are not all fleeing the country because we are in fear of losing our lives on the roads. Only other sorts of violent crime scare us.

It may be because we exercise autonomy in driving a car, in choosing to sit in a taxi or crossing a street, but all these voluntary actions happen within a framework of laws and guidelines that should ensure our safety. The fact that they do not, hardly seems to trouble us. Latest figures show that just as many pedestrians as drivers die in road accidents. And that is no surprise. Sometime in the last few years black and white lines started appearing on the roads. These were meant to be zebra crossings for pedestrians, places where any person or child would be guaranteed not to be knocked down as they always had priority over the motorist at those points. Except that our zebra crossings had no yellow flashing lights to alert drivers, no zigzag lines on the approach that out law parking and waiting, thereby giving on-coming vehicles clear sight of pedestrians about to cross. Many crossings are dangerously positioned and provide ample opportunity for both suicide and manslaughter.

Only in the last few months have the lights and extra lines started appearing, but not systematically. Some crossings now have lights but no zigzag lines and vice versa and in nearly all of them the white zebra markings have disappeared. These are not meant to be painted but gouged into the road, so no surprise either that they do not last. Normally, in most spheres of life, when new systems are introduced users are instructed in how to use them. In the case of zebra crossings the opposite is true. I asked a few drivers parked on crossings if they knew they weren’t supposed to be there and they all pleaded ignorance. Similarly, pedestrians don’t know that standing at a crossing indicates the desire to cross and for vehicles to stop.

I bemoaned to someone in a division of Works and Transport the uselessness of this project in the absence of a public awareness programme. He explained that the powers-that-be had not yet decided who should have priority at the crossings. So, for the time being, pedestrians and drivers are being left to sort it out between themselves. If he is right that is a deliberate failure of the state to keep us safe, an abrogation of its key duty. In fact, there are many open invitations to self destruct. The road surfaces are grossly uneven, the edges are unmarked or collapsed, there are insufficient street lights, cats eyes have disappeared, danger warnings for humps and things too large to be called potholes are almost non-existent, street names seem to be considered irrelevant and now that street levels are so high, pavements are wholly unsafe.

The list is endless, but the most startling example of a death trap is the Churchill Roosevelt-Uriah Butler highways intersection where the farthest left lane, northwards, ends in a drain and a river-deep, open space in the middle of the road, where the eastbound and southbound lanes split, can comfortably accommodate several layers of cars stacked nicely on top of one another. Trinidadians have a very high tolerance level when it comes to law-breaking. That is why we don’t wear seat belts, use and drive illegal taxis and, in fact, do whatever we like or think necessary, mindless of the personal, social or economic consequences.

Many people would argue bad laws are unenforceable but good laws work. True, so let’s get some more good ones. I would also argue that enforcement can change the way people behave. We do not park near hydrants or corners because we know our cars will be removed but since we never get stopped about seat belts or PH taxis, why bother? Any police reform should include, as a priority, making the traffic division an effective one with powers to reduce the amount of crime committed on the roads. But the government and the opposition should also closely examine their own role in allowing us all to be potential killers and suicide victims.