-whenever there is a serious accident
RECENTLY, I read of an accident that took place on the access road leading to the Mocha-Arcadia villages. The scene of the crash showed a vehicle belly-up in the muddied waters of the canal nearby. The story, according to reports, speaks of that vehicle turning -turtle several times before landing in the canal.
Thankfully, no one was fatally hurt.  As expected, the driver of the minibus blamed the accident on bad roads and a steering that mysteriously malfunctioned.
Even the villagers, who were not there, had the audacity to support him with this phantom theory. The fact of the matter is simple logic mixed with commonsense dictated that this driver was speeding, because when there is a potholed motorway, the sane thing to do is to drive slowly, very slowly, as you get in and around those craters; only if you want your vehicle to be irreparably damaged or risk it spinning out of control, as was the real-case scenario in this incident.
I can recall my childhood years growing up in West Canje when we travelled on Dad and Buddy’s buses, those buses made out of motor lorries whose maximum speed was 25 mph,  along the burnt-brick roads.
I cannot remember any accidents during those years of travel. However, I vividly remember the time when those burnt-brick roads were replaced by asphalt-surfaced ones, and the advent of sleek and faster moving transport when death was on our roads.
The same can be said of most of our communities, wherein the potholed roads were engineered to be wider and well paved, and in the urban locations traffic lights can be found at critical junctions, while newer models of vehicular traffic race past us at breakneck speeds.
All of the above are sure signs of progress and development trappings of the modern age we live in. However, one cannot negate the fact that driving in Guyana stinks to High Heaven.
Many of our drivers, or should I say those who sit behind a wheel, drive recklessly. Traffic lights are treated as hindrances rather than the help they were designed to be, while pedestrians are viewed as irritants or obstacles in the way of minibus drivers as they try to make that  extra dollar.
They treat our roads as racing circuits without a care in the world about whoever they maim or kill.
Except stiffer penalties such as jail time, total revocation of licences, hefty compensation to the surviving relatives among other serious punishments are implemented, this nightmare involving traffic violations is sure to continue.