"Life can change in an in­stant, and then we live in the space of be­fore, and af­ter..."

A poignant re­flec­tion on the un­pre­dictable na­ture of road ac­ci­dents by Sharon In­gle­field, Pres­i­dent of the non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion Ar­rive Alive, as it ob­served World Day of Re­mem­brance for Road Traf­fic Vic­tims on Sun­day 17 No­vem­ber 2024, with its an­nu­al Walk and Ride event at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in Port of Spain.

Scores of walk­ers and cy­clists gath­ered to par­tic­i­pate in the event, which pro­vid­ed a mo­ment of re­flec­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty for those af­fect­ed by road traf­fic ac­ci­dents.  They were re­mind­ed of the on­go­ing need for change and the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure safer roads for all.

The World Day of Re­mem­brance was es­tab­lished by the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in 1993 and is ob­served every third Sun­day in No­vem­ber. It ho­n­ours the vic­tims of road traf­fic in­juries and their fam­i­lies, ac­knowl­edg­ing the pro­found im­pact of these in­ci­dents on com­mu­ni­ties world­wide. This year’s theme was "That Day", em­pha­siz­ing the life-al­ter­ing con­se­quences of road traf­fic col­li­sions.

"We will not give up hope for im­proved road safe­ty, and we will not give in to what is pop­u­lar," said the Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent, as she re­stat­ed the or­ga­ni­za­tion's con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to road safe­ty ad­vo­ca­cy.

In­gle­field as­sert­ed: "A safe, ef­fi­cient trans­porta­tion sys­tem for all road users, well-ed­u­cat­ed, dis­ci­plined dri­vers, and jus­tice for all—these are our rights!"

Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Sen­a­tor Ro­han Sinanan, took ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak about his Min­istry's ef­forts to im­prove road safe­ty, point­ing to its in­fra­struc­ture en­hance­ments and care­ful speed reg­u­la­tion ini­tia­tives.

“We are de­sign­ing the road net­work to en­sure safe­ty for all users. The con­tracts for ca­ble bar­ri­ers along the south­ern high­way have al­ready be­gun, and we are look­ing at ma­jor road im­prove­ments across the coun­try,” he con­firmed.

Min­is­ter Sinanan al­so em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion, not­ing the key role played by var­i­ous en­ti­ties in ad­vanc­ing road safe­ty.

“We re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing along­side the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Fire Ser­vice, the Min­istry of Health, and or­ga­ni­za­tions like Ar­rive Alive, all of whom have been in­stru­men­tal in our suc­cess,” he added.

Mean­while, Kellyanne Lochan, Coun­try Man­ag­er of Wood­side En­er­gy Trinidad and To­ba­go—the event’s Plat­inum Spon­sor—high­light­ed the im­por­tance of road safe­ty for the na­tion’s well-be­ing.

“Road safe­ty is cru­cial to our coun­try. It will lit­er­al­ly im­pact whether each of us will see each oth­er at next year's World Day of Re­mem­brance," she ob­served.

“This year, we are par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cerned by the 5% in­crease in pas­sen­ger and 62% in­crease in pedes­tri­an deaths, com­pared to 2023,” Lochan not­ed. “While we have seen re­duc­tions in dri­ver, mo­tor­cy­clist, and bik­er fa­tal­i­ties, these in­creas­es un­der­score the ur­gent need for con­tin­ued fo­cus on pedes­tri­an and pas­sen­ger safe­ty.”

In ad­di­tion to Plat­inum Spon­sor Wood­side En­er­gy, the event al­so rec­og­nized the gen­er­ous sup­port of spon­sors who make the ad­vo­ca­cy for road safe­ty pos­si­ble, in­clud­ing ANSA Mo­tors, At­lantic LNG, The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC), Cap­i­tal Sig­nal, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, Mo­bil, Sagi­cor Gen­er­al, and Star­bucks.