Letter of the Day | Kudos to cops for reining in road hogs
Published:Tuesday | February 27, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Many of us who drive along the traffic-jammed thoroughfares of Kingston and elsewhere across the island suffer multiple emotions as we witness the crass and undisciplined conduct of motorists.
We cringe not because of some moral or religious revulsion, but on one hand, we are revulsed by the human carnage caused by the reckless endangerment on constant display. On the other hand, we hyperventilate and swear when we survive a near miss brought about by selfish and uncouth conduct.
I encounter this bad behaviour to a lesser extent in some of the rural areas, but it is on display along the Ocho Rios to Montego Bay corridor. We see overtaking of a long line of traffic, and special turning lanes being used to squeeze out and bully other drivers.
For those of us who are restrained from retaliating against the road hogs, we are often left only to wish upon a wish that the traffic police would show up, intervene and do their job.
Glory be! I got my wish on Monday morning, February 26, as I traversed the Grants Pen to Barbican to East Kings House Road circuit. Already being crammed in the Barbican traffic because of ongoing construction, just at the Loshushan strip going towards Hope Road, here comes a JUTA bus breathing down on me, which then overtook me and the snake line of traffic.
But Senior Superintendent of Police Calvin Allen and his men were on the prowl, and to my delight, by the time I got to the Barbican football field, I saw a motorcycle cop directing the JUTA bus to leave the lane into which he had bored hundreds of metres ahead of me, to reverse in the opposite lane going back to Barbican Square!
FEELING OF JUSTICE
What a delight and a feeling of justice! Had I not been on my way to a meeting, I most surely would have turned back to see how far the sergeant would have Mr JUTA travel back up the road. Would he stop off by the Liguanea Prep lay-by or all the way to Loshushan? How heavy would be the fine or how stern would be the warning?
Satisfaction indeed, but how often does this occur? Must we deploy an officer on every street to ensure discipline on our roads? For sure, it would take thousands of officers and it would be an imprudent way to deploy resources. So what then of the future?
It does appear that there is a high sample of the universe of Jamaican motorists who will continue to insist on reckless driving. It seems to me that a combination of the Road Traffic Act, 2018 and all attendant regulations should conspire to allow for the legal deployment of technology to monitor certain traffic flows and issue traffic tickets that will stand up in the courts and rein in some of these miscreants.
It was satisfying to see the traffic cops being effective, even in this solitary incident.
CHRISTOPHER PRYCE