Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn, has sounded the alarm to warn citizens who get into fist fights with the police to desist from that practice, which appears to be growing into a new norm in Guyana.

At the launch of the Police Force’s ‘Respect the Road’ campaign on Monday, Mr. Benn said drivers on the country’s roadways often appear impatient, unruly and aggressive, which often leads to altercation with ranks who are doing their jobs.

He said the fighting with police officers, brings the country into disrepute and it will no longer be tolerated.

“And which in large measure comes from dysfunctional, disrespectful adult behavior because these issues are related to the behavior of adults and we have to make that frank admission in respect to this matter,” the Minister said.

Benn said the worrying situation on the country’s roadways requires that drivers and pedestrians follow the directives of the traffic officers carrying out their duties.

He calculated that the country is well on course of surpassing one hundred traffic deaths for this year. Already, 70 traffic deaths have been recorded so far for the year, representing a 33% increase over the same period last year.

Accidents on the country’s roadways also went up by 30% compared with the same period last year.

To curb the situation Benn said, there has to be more aggressive enforcement actions.

“And aggressive enforcement actions, mean that for every month going forward means that we can only have five road deaths a month going forward now. So, if we want to maintain the type of figure what had last year, we have to make sure that, we cannot have more than five road deaths a month,” Benn said.

He believes there is a need for some order in the public transportation system, and expressed the view that mini-bus operators and taxi drivers need to uniformed. He also said there is no real need for touts.

“We cannot simply continue with this level of lawless behavior and that perhaps and certainly we will have to institute a system where they would have to pay for the book which indicate to us which bus and which rank, they belong to and are operating,” Benn said.

Road accidents have been on the rise across the country, triggering the launch of the ‘Respect the Road’, to assist in curbing the problematic situation.

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