Traffic Chief urges safer use of roadways as busy holiday season approaches

Although fatal accidents appear to be on the decline this year, Traffic Chief Mahendra Singh, worries that there could be an increase as the year winds down. He is urging all road users to practice safety and caution.

A total of 99 fatal accidents have been recorded so far for the year.

“What you see happening is that of the last ten years, seven had substantially one hundred and more fat accidents, but we recognized that for 2001, 2022 and present day we would have had significant decreases for 2001 and 2022 there were decreases tangible to less than 100 on completion of those years. For this year, while at the end of it we will enjoy a significant reduction then last year—we will not be able to achieve, at the way things are going less than 100 fatal accidents and correspondingly, less than 100 fatalities,” the Traffic Chief noted.

Speeding has accounted for the majority of the fatal accidents, followed by inattentiveness and use of cell phones and other forms of distractions.

The Traffic Department has also noticed that most of the fatal accidents occur on the weekends, specifically Fridays and Saturdays between noon to midnight.

For this year, some 41 motorcyclists lost their lives on the roadways compared to 48 this year.

Additionally, 26 pedestrians have died on the roadways for this year when compared to 37 last year.

The Traffic Chief explained that the majority of the accidents involve private motor cars, motorcycles and motor lorries.

He also revealed that there will be a need for more traffic ranks as there are now more than 116,000 registered vehicles on Guyana’s roadways.

“New and emerging housing development lend to a need for improve traffic engineering, be it signs, signals or road markings and there is an insufficiency which puts a significant strain on the already limited available human resources,” the Traffic Chief stated.

The Traffic Chief said there is a need for better use of the roadways, and he has promised that there will be additional ranks monitoring the use of the roads in the coming days.