–this year’s watchword for road safety week

TRAFFIC Chief, Mr. Linden Isles on Thursday touched on a subject that everyone seems to avoid like the plague, which is the serious and long-lasting socio-economic impact even the simplest of accidents can have on a family.

“Many times persons may become lame; they cannot provide for their family and therefore many times families are left to suffer as a result,” he said.
“In addition, it can put an additional burden on the state; people are hospitalised in the public hospital and have to be cared for and there are many other situations,” he told the Guyana Chronicle.

The occasion was a meeting on Thursday morning organised by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and the Guyana National Road Safety Council (GNRSC) at the Kitty Roundabout to discuss national road safety matters.

The other subject Mr. Isles touched on, albeit briefly, was the dangers of overloading, saying that commuters need to report these matters whenever they occur, especially when schoolchildren are involved, so as to help stamp them out.

“Further, parents need to know what their children are doing; they need to communicate with their children because, if a child is going to school, the parent should know how the child is going and coming from school,” he said.

As to the preference among schoolchildren these days for the minibuses with the loud music and a propensity to overload, Mr. Isles said that little do they know the danger they are courting, since the vehicles at reference were built to only carry a certain amount of weight.
And when it exceeds that weight, it can become difficult to control, especially in cases of unexpected situations.

He also made a point that no one thinks about in the heat of the excitement, which is that the insurance does not cater for such situations as overcrowding and the unexpected, and therefore in the event of an accident, not only would persons not be compensated, but they may end up in situations their families are not able to handle.

In the circumstance, he is urging parents and guardians to get more involved in their children’s lives, especially those that are at an age where they are still attending school.

The meeting was being held under the theme, “Stop accident before it stops you; be alert, accident hurts”, while the sub-theme, courtesy of the GNRSC, was: “Stop the tears; slow down. Drive cautiously”.