– need for care, courtesy, consideration, caution and commonsense

A FREAK accident on Tuesday night at Geod Fortuin, West Bank Demerara, left a truck, GSS 5263, in a ditch.The accident slowed the evening’s traffic flow, while public-spirited citizens moved to assist the driver in offloading drums of an unidentified substance, thought to be kerosene, from the truck’s tray.
Tuesday night’s incident was fortunately without fatality, but underscored the need for drivers to heed the ‘Five Cs’: care, courtesy, consideration, caution and commonsense.
This has been the fifth in a series of non-fatal accidents on the West Bank/West Coast corridor in the last two weeks.
The Guyana Police Force’s (GPF) Traffic Department has recorded 103 accidents with 112 deaths, with 10 being children for 2013.
The Department’s statistics on road accidents, as at May this year, indicated that some 54 have been killed, seven of whom were children, while a number of persons have been seriously injured, although it is only mid-year. Pedestrians, pedal cyclists and motorists remain the most vulnerable to fatalities and road accidents.
Speeding continues to be a major contributory factor to fatal accidents, despite police traffic enforcement activities during 2013 resulting in more than 107,650 cases being made against errant motorists. Of that number, more than 20,443 were for speeding.

(Vanessa Narine)