– Traffic Chief stresses need for helmet when riding

TWO days before his 22nd birthday, Shawn Patrick of Bagotville, West Bank Demerara (WBD) crashed into a utility pole on the Goed Fortuin Public Road and lost his life.

According to police, investigations disclosed that Patrick was riding a motor cycle CH 8338 proceeding south along the Goed Fortuin carriageway at a fast rate, overtook a motor car on a turn, hitting the left side front of motor lorry GJJ 5817 which was facing south, and then slammed into a utility pole. He was rushed to the West Demerara Regional Hospital at 05:00hrs where he was pronounced dead on arrival on Saturday.
Patrick was not wearing any helmet. He was also not licensed to ride a motorcycle. Reports disclose that he was returning home from a party.
The driver of the motor lorry is in police custody assisting with the investigation. According to his mother, Abiola Lynch, she last spoke to her son on Friday night when he said he was heading out to party with his friends.
“He said he was going to Middle Street with his friends; he doesn’t normally ride motorcycle.
“It was not his but his friend’s own; whenever he borrow it, he would ride,” the mother of six explained.
She said Patrick was her eldest child and he usually worked in the gold mines of the interior, but he has been out for a year now, working as a porter.
Acting Traffic Chief Boodnarine Persaud overemphasised the need for motorcyclists and pillion riders to wear helmets for their own safety and protection, while using the roads. Persaud said that most of the persons on motorcycles who were killed in accidents were not wearing helmets.
“While there were some who were wearing, it was not properly strapped, so when the collision occurred, it flung off their heads and it could not have protected them.”
This, he said, results in death or brain haemorrhaging and other internal head injuries. The survivors are mainly those persons who were wearing helmets. “Riding without helmets is dangerous; they [motorcyclists] are always the vulnerable group, because they are injured in the slightest collision,” he explained.