LAST year, there was a 23.7 per cent increase in fatal accidents and a resultant 23.3 per cent increase in fatalities when compared with 2013. Additionally, there was a 37.5 percent increase in the number of children killed on the roadways for 2014 when compared with 2013.

Pedestrians topped the class of road users killed in 2014, with sixty deaths recorded as against 39 in 2013.
PEDESTRIAN MORTALITY
The pedestrian mortality rate was more than 41% of all road deaths in 2014.
The grim statistics were revealed by the Maintenance Safety and Traffic Department of the Ministry of Public Works which disclosed that last year 135 fatal traffic accidents occurred on Guyana’s roads, causing the deaths of 146 persons compared to 103 fatal accidents causing the deaths of 112 persons in 2013.
DEADLIEST AUGUST
August month 2014 was the deadliest month for 2014 with statistics disclosing a more than 300% increase in accidents, both fatal accidents and fatalities compared to the figures in 2013.
In this month alone there were twenty-one fatal accidents resulting in twenty-two deaths compared to six accidents and six fatalities in 2013.
The statistics for 2014 showed that the East Bank Demerara thoroughfare was again the deadliest route for commuters.
Of the 146 persons who died in road accidents during 2014, 24 of the victims died on the East Bank Demerara roadway.
The East Coast Demerara was the second deadliest with 21 deaths and Georgetown and West Coast Demerara followed with sixteen deaths each.
There were 26 motorcyclists killed in 2014 compared to 18 in 2013; twenty pedal cyclists killed in 2014 compared to 13 in 2013 and twenty three passengers killed in 2014 compared to 13 in 2013.
“These are some of the figures we really need to focus on for persons to understand where we are and how we need to be much more careful in terms of what we do when we drive,” Coordinator of the Works Services Group (WSG) of the Ministry of Public Works ,Geoffrey Vaughn stressed.
Damage by drivers to road furniture such as rails and traffic signs cost the ministry some $19.2M in repairs last year.

Vaughn said, “We all have a lot of work to do in curbing road accidents and road accident fatalities.”