— NRSC appealing to drivers to dim their lights

THE National Road Safety Council (NRSC) has noted the increased use of bright lights by drivers and has said that this is responsible for many of the road accidents which happened recently.

In an interview with this newspaper, Head of NRSC, Ramona Doorgen, called on motorists to show consideration for others who are using the roadways by dimming their lights where possible.

“You don’t have to drive with your bright lights all the time; you can dim your lights. Try to consider the drivers that are coming from the other end, so you wouldn’t be driving with your bright lights in anybody’s face,” she advised.

Doorgen spoke with the Guyana Chronicle in the NRSC office which is located inside the Red Cross Building in Kingston. She spoke especially in the context of the recent spate of fatal accidents in the country.

“We are still encouraging persons to slow down; the weather sometimes is very bad. When we visited the hospitals and saw some of the survivors of road crashes, one of the excuses we got was that they saw a bright light coming, and it was so bright that that’s how they got into the accident,” she recalled.

Speeding and driving under the influence, however, remain the top factors causing accidents, Doorgen said. “Definitely speeding is the major cause and the major factor causing road crashes; a lot of inattentiveness. If people start to slow down, I think we would have a reduction in road accidents.”

She added that in many cases, exercising common sense was all that was needed to prevent an accident. “You know, it really, really bothers me. Why are we not adhering to what we learned while we were driving? Common sense can tell us sometimes; simple negligence is causing these road accidents.”

She added that road safety is an individual responsibility as everyone should caution a driver who is speeding or drunk. She also called on the churches to do more. “We’re calling on the churches to step up. They’ve taken a back seat for too long. They have to start to promote road safety in the churches, whether Muslim or Hindu.”

Doorgen said the overhead crossings, pedestrian crossing, traffic lights, and other facilities by the government must be used according to the rules that are governing them.

Every year, the Police’s Traffic Department and the NRSC would dedicate the last week in November towards the awareness of road safety. During this period, numerous campaigns are launched across the country to educate the public about the importance of using the road in a safe manner. However, Road Safety Week 2019 came to a horrific end and has proven to be one of the deadliest weeks for the year so far.

This led President David Granger to issue a message to the nation in which he said that more must be done to prevent deaths, disabilities, injuries and damage to property on Guyana’s roadways. He said he found it “deeply distressing” the number of persons who have lost their lives in road accidents recently.

The head of state lamented the preventable loss of lives of 21 persons, including three children, in 15 road accidents in November alone. Altogether, his statistics put forward show that 114 persons – including nine children and 30 pedestrians — were killed in 97 road accidents this year while young persons between the ages of 16 and 42 years comprised more than three out of every five fatalities.

Even as the President urged road-users to observe the Guyana Police Force’s (GPFs) code of behaviour – care, caution, consideration, common sense and courtesy – as they utilise roadways, he pointed out some of his own proposals made at the launch of Road Safety Month, on November 4, 2015.

The three-point approach includes stricter enforcement of existing traffic laws; increased road safety education; and improved road signs and infrastructure.