RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Faced with a 25 per cent in­crease in road traf­fic fa­tal­i­ties, en­gi­neers from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port are now re­vis­it­ing dan­ger­ous road­ways across the coun­try to find ways of im­prov­ing safe­ty.

The M2 Ring Road, Ma­coya In­ter­sec­tion, Debe Round­about and sev­er­al points along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way have been pin­point­ed as the most dan­ger­ous road­ways in the coun­try be­cause of the fre­quen­cy of se­ri­ous ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents in those ar­eas. 

T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor Sgt Brent Bat­son yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia there have been 36 deaths this year and he be­lieves ba­sic safe­ty, such as in­stal­la­tion of rum­ble strips, prop­er light­ing and im­prove­ment of road sur­face in­fra­struc­ture, can all con­tribute to safe­ty.

How­ev­er, he al­so says since COVID-19 re­stric­tions were lift­ed and pan­dem­ic frus­tra­tion is height­ened, mo­torists have been tak­ing more risks dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence, go­ing above the speed lim­it and en­gag­ing in reck­less dri­ving.

Asked what could be done to im­prove safe­ty in these ar­eas, Sgt Bat­son said there are vary­ing rec­om­men­da­tions made by the TTPS Traf­fic Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion, in­clud­ing pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion.

“Just be­fore the Debe Round­about, the speed lim­it drops and there are mul­ti­ple signs say­ing re­duce speed, which drops to 60 km. Dri­vers need to pay more at­ten­tion to sig­nage,” Bat­son said.

Told that some of the signs were cov­ered with vines and not vis­i­ble, Bat­son ex­plained: “We have al­so rec­om­mend­ed in­creased light­ing. I know the Min­istry of Works is sup­posed to be do­ing a site vis­it and is look­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of im­ple­ment­ing rum­ble strips at the end of the high­way. Al­so, rather than putting hard con­crete me­di­ans at the round­about, they can use im­pact at­ten­u­a­tor de­vices to cush­ion im­pacts, such as sand bar­rels or wa­ter bar­rels.”

He not­ed that the M2 Ring Road is al­so a dan­ger­ous road­way, with many ac­ci­dents oc­cur­ring there over the years.

“A lot of peo­ple for­get these are old tasker roads used by Ca­roni, which is now the main thor­ough­fare for vol­umes of traf­fic. We have rec­om­mend­ed more shoul­der ar­eas. They have start­ed to mark the road, grade it for in­creased grip and we have al­so rec­om­mend­ed widen­ing the road,” Bat­son added.

He said there have been a sur­pris­ing num­ber of ac­ci­dents on the Rivulet Road this year as well.

Con­cern­ing the Ma­coya In­ter­sec­tion, Bat­son said in­creased sig­nage was need­ed. He ex­plained that the colour of the build­ings in the back­ground could mask the vis­i­bil­i­ty of the traf­fic lights for on­com­ing mo­torists.

Mean­while, civ­il en­gi­neer Dr Don Samuel, who now works at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, agreed that the in­stal­la­tion of rum­ble strips, flex­i­ble bar­ri­ers be­tween high­way me­di­ans and re-en­gi­neer­ing of road struc­tures can im­prove road safe­ty.

Dr Samuel, who has over 20 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in project man­age­ment, fa­cil­i­ties man­age­ment and con­struc­tion man­age­ment, said: “As civ­il en­gi­neers, we are re­spon­si­ble for the safe de­sign of high­ways and roads in terms of dura­bil­i­ty, geo­met­rics and drainage.

“As you are aware, in some cas­es, road ac­ci­dents may be caused by dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence, un­safe dri­ving be­hav­iour or fa­tigue. How­ev­er, if the dri­ver’s speed ex­ceeds the de­sign speed of the road, then the prob­a­bil­i­ty of an ac­ci­dent in­creas­es, es­pe­cial­ly at a curved por­tion of the road where the dri­ver could lose more con­trol of the ve­hi­cle.”

Say­ing he wit­nessed a fa­tal ac­ci­dent in Jan­u­ary at Debe, Samuel added: “I ob­served that the dri­ver crossed the me­di­an, flipped and sad­ly passed away. There were no bar­ri­ers in that area to re­duce the risk.”

Samuel al­so not­ed that all road mark­ings and sig­nage should be main­tained.

“We need to con­vert hor­i­zon­tal curves on roads to su­per el­e­va­tions, al­so known as banked roads, to per­mit mo­torists to ma­noeu­vre ve­hi­cles at a safe speed in these ar­eas,” he ex­plained.

Say­ing the road struc­ture should al­so be main­tained, Samuel said, “Pot­holes have been a fre­quent com­plaint by the mo­tor­ing pub­lic and while they may not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­tribute to an ac­ci­dent, they could in­crease the prob­a­bil­i­ty of an ac­ci­dent if you are at­tempt­ing to avoid a pot­hole and en­ter in­to the on­com­ing lane in a sin­gle car­riage­way.”  

He al­so rec­om­mend­ed the in­stal­la­tion and main­te­nance of flex­i­ble bar­ri­ers at all known points of fre­quent ac­ci­dents to mit­i­gate against me­di­an cross­ings. 

“We need to in­stall and main­tain rum­ble strips at all known points of fre­quent ac­ci­dents to alert inat­ten­tive dri­vers of po­ten­tial haz­ards and we must al­so en­sure that the pub­lic gets val­ue for mon­ey in the ex­e­cu­tion of road con­tracts, us­ing trans­par­ent pro­cure­ment and en­force­able spec­i­fi­ca­tions,” he said.

Samuel said while he was not knock­ing the min­istry, con­trac­tors or en­gi­neers, more can be done from a con­tract­ing stand­point to en­sure there are qual­i­ty roads.

“All roads re­quire con­tin­u­ous main­te­nance of the road struc­ture. I have ob­served that some sec­ondary roads have road struc­tures which have failed. Patch­ing will not solve the prob­lem, the road struc­ture needs to be re-en­gi­neered since a failed road struc­ture could re­sult in a mo­torist los­ing con­trol of the ve­hi­cle, say when the slope of the road is more than 2.5 per cent due to a failed road struc­ture,” he said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the Traf­fic Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion is look­ing at ways to im­prove safe­ty.

He said, “In analysing all these ac­ci­dents with the TTPS, it is recog­nised that hu­man er­ror has a great part to play in these ac­ci­dents. While we sym­pa­thise with those who have lost fam­i­ly mem­bers, we again ap­peal to the pub­lic to be more re­spon­si­ble while us­ing the roads.”

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