KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many Point Fortin res­i­dents see the re­cent­ly opened Archibald-DeLeon High­way as a bless­ing, Sun­day’s ac­ci­dent at the Guapo round­about that claimed the life of vet­er­an DJ Clyde “De Out­law” Jem­mott has raised safe­ty is­sues, with some la­belling the area a death trap.

Work­ers on the high­way con­struc­tion site told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the round­about where the ac­ci­dent hap­pened, which di­verts traf­fic from the high­way on­to the South­ern Main Road, of­ten has mo­torists hit­ting their brakes abrupt­ly.

One mo­torist said she crashed in that area be­cause she did not see the round­about un­til it was too late. Thank­ful­ly, she did not suf­fer se­ri­ous in­juries.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Jem­mott, 56, of Mor­vant, and Jo­han Red­head, 35, of San Fer­nan­do, were trav­el­ling in a white Kia Rio along the high­way, head­ing to San Fer­nan­do on Sun­day. As they ap­proached the round­about, the car flipped sev­er­al times be­fore slam­ming in­to a light pole. When Guapo po­lice ar­rived around 4 am, they saw the car on its hood and the light pole on top it. Jem­mott, a DJ at 96.1 WE FM, was ly­ing on the ground af­ter be­ing thrown out the car, while Red­head, an an­nounc­er at Next 99.1 FM, had crawled out.

An am­bu­lance took the men to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, where Jem­mott died hours lat­er. Red­head re­mains in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do taxi dri­ver Ja­son Plen­ty re­called see­ing the ac­ci­dent scene on Sun­day around 5.30 am and sus­pect­ed it was some­one un­fa­mil­iar with the area. Plen­ty said every­one liv­ing in Point Fortin and en­vi­rons knew of the round­about. He said al­though new­com­ers to the area would pass it head­ing to Point Fortin, they may not be con­scious of it, and it is hard to see when ap­proach­ing. He said there was a need for re­flec­tors around the round­about to make it more vis­i­ble from a dis­tance.

“You have to know that round­about there, trust me, be­cause you are run­ning on the high­way and be­fore you start to de­scend, the high­way looks like it is con­tin­u­ing and if you are run­ning at a high pace and you re­alise that round­about there, you will lose con­trol if you are not a sea­soned dri­ver,” Plen­ty said.

An­oth­er taxi dri­ver, Rich­mond Phillip, said there was a need for more light­ing, ex­plain­ing that there is a hill to as­cend be­fore ap­proach­ing the round­about. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Phillip said the round­about was so low that peo­ple usu­al­ly miss it and look ahead of it.

“We need some light­ing and signs be­cause peo­ple who are not ac­cus­tomed to com­ing to Point, be­cause if they are leav­ing and go­ing up the road be­fore you reach that round­about, you see ahead, you are not see­ing that left turn,” Phillip said.

Guardian Me­dia drove to­wards the round­about and no­ticed no signs alert­ing mo­torists. There are no swerv­ing path­ways to force dri­vers to slow down but there are six mark­ings of “Slow” on the road­way. The height of the round­about is less than ten inch­es.

Phillip be­lieves that un­less the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT) up­grades the safe­ty mea­sures, more peo­ple who do not live in the area will get in­to ac­ci­dents.

Mean­while, Ava­lyn La Pierre, a res­i­dent, loves how quick­ly she reach­es San Fer­nan­do via the high­way, by­pass­ing the traf­fic and pot­holes on the South­ern Main Road. How­ev­er, she too be­lieves there should be more sig­nage un­til the high­way work is com­plete.

“I guess you have to pay at­ten­tion to where you are go­ing. If you are not pay­ing at­ten­tion to where you are go­ing, you could get in an ac­ci­dent. You will not no­tice it if you are not from Point,” La Pierre said.

MP Richards re­sponds

Point Fortin MP Kennedy Richards Jr yes­ter­day said the MOWT built the high­way to in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards. How­ev­er, he not­ed that the round­about is tem­po­rary, as work con­tin­ues on a por­tion that has to cross gas lines. Once com­plet­ed, the South­ern Main Road will re­vert to its orig­i­nal path and there will be no need for the round­about, he said.

“What we have is some peo­ple are call­ing it a death trap and what not. It is on­ly a death trap if you are there at some se­ri­ous speed. We have had some per­son­nel go there to­day to see what im­prove­ments we can make re­gard­ing safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty for peo­ple who use the road net­work,” Richards said.

He said dur­ing the high­way open­ing last month, Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials spoke about the round­about and asked dri­vers to pro­ceed cau­tious­ly.

Richards ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Jem­mott’s fam­i­ly, friends and fans, say­ing he al­so en­joyed his play­ing on the ra­dio. He al­so not­ed that there were no in­di­ca­tions of what caused the crash.

In an In­sta­gram video mean­while, 96.1 WE FM man­ag­ing di­rec­tor An­tho­ny Chow Lin On said he re­ceived mes­sages and so­cial me­dia posts in­di­cat­ing that oth­er peo­ple died at the same spot where Jem­mott crashed.

“There are is­sues. I do not know the de­sign of the high­way. Some peo­ple say it feels like a straight road, but it is a round­about. I do not know,” Chow Lin On said.

He said he want­ed to do some­thing about it and called for in­for­ma­tion to lob­by the au­thor­i­ties. While two peo­ple died in a crash along the high­way last month, po­lice con­firmed there were no oth­er deaths at the round­about.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day blamed the min­istry for Jem­mott’s death, say­ing Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan rushed to open a sec­tion of the high­way to Point Fortin with­out ap­pro­pri­ate signs, flick­er­ing lights, and oth­er cau­tion­ary mea­sures.

“At that open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in­dulged in po­lit­i­cal grand­stand­ing in­stead of in­sist­ing that prop­er sig­nage was in­stalled. To­day, I ask if the $11 mil­lion spent on the com­mis­sion of en­quiry will re­turn the lives of those who die as a re­sult of State-spon­sored neg­li­gence?”

Mooni­lal said he pub­licly stat­ed a month ago that there were risks along the new sec­tions of the high­way be­cause of poor or non-ex­is­tent sig­nage and iden­ti­fied spe­cif­ic ar­eas that ur­gent­ly re­quired such sig­nage. He warned that with­out them, there could be more au­to tragedies. He al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences and plead­ed with Sinanan to pro­vide the re­quired di­rec­tions, cau­tions and oth­er safe­ty mea­sures.

Calls and mes­sages to Sinanan yes­ter­day re­mained unan­swered.