KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Less than 12 hours af­ter Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranth Tan­coo called for the in­stal­la­tion of alert signs at the end of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way in Debe, a Cunu­pia man has be­come yet an­oth­er road fa­tal­i­ty vic­tim there.

The round­about in Gand­hi Vil­lage, which ends the con­tro­ver­sial Debe-Mon De­sir sec­tion of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin project, has built a rep­u­ta­tion for se­vere crash­es over the years.

There were many se­ri­ous and fa­tal ac­ci­dents where mo­torists col­lid­ed with the con­crete bar­ri­ers at the round­about.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 3 am on Sun­day, Vin­od Maraj was dri­ving South along the high­way in his grey Hon­da City sedan when he crashed in­to the con­crete bar­ri­ers.

South­ern Di­vi­sion Po­lice, fire­fight­ers and para­medics re­spond­ed to re­ports of the ac­ci­dent, but Maraj, 38, of Olive Dri­ve Cunu­pia, was al­ready dead.

The car was al­most un­recog­nis­able as there were pieces scat­tered on the road. A fire ten­der had to pull a few bar­ri­ers back in place.

In a me­dia re­lease on Sat­ur­day, Tan­coo said the un­fin­ished high­way ends pre­ma­ture­ly and needs im­me­di­ate mech­a­nisms to alert dri­vers.

His state­ment came hours af­ter three youths from Trinci­ty es­caped death on Sat­ur­day af­ter the car they were trav­el­ling in crashed in­to the con­crete bar­ri­ers.

“Mo­torists have com­plained that the light­ing at the site is in the wrong po­si­tion as it is fac­ing north­ward, di­rect­ly in­to the eyes of on­com­ing dri­vers. It can cause tem­po­rary dis­ori­en­ta­tion and loss of vi­sion with po­ten­tial­ly trag­ic re­sults,” Tan­coo said.

Many of the ac­ci­dents in­volved mo­torists who did not live in the area.

Tan­coo said the round­about does not have alert light­ing or re­flec­tive signs. Be­sides the loss of lives, many peo­ple suf­fered dam­age to their ve­hi­cles. Tan­coo said sev­er­al protests oc­curred at the round­about call­ing for Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan to in­ter­vene.

He called on Sinanan to act ur­gent­ly and not wait un­til an­oth­er tragedy.

 “Flash­ing alert lights and warn­ing signs vis­i­ble in the day and night to warn dri­vers are need­ed im­me­di­ate­ly to stop the ac­ci­dents and loss of life,” said Tan­coo.

Min­is­ter re­sponds

In re­sponse, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said a team from the Min­istry’s Traf­fic Man­age­ment Branch vis­it­ed the site to as­cer­tain whether all man­dat­ed traf­fic signs and mea­sures were in place, alert­ing dri­vers of the round­about in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al prac­tices.

Sinanan said the team found the req­ui­site mea­sures in place. The min­istry is aware of ar­eas termed “ac­ci­dent black spots” that are more sus­cep­ti­ble to ac­ci­dents un­der im­paired con­di­tions.

Sinanan said the find­ings of the po­lice are crit­i­cal to al­low­ing the min­istry to fo­cus its ac­tions. He said that in seek­ing to en­hance safe­ty mea­sures at the site, the Min­istry would in­stall ad­di­tion­al traf­fic con­trol de­vices in the quick­est pos­si­ble time. The Min­istry al­so seeks to ad­dress the geo­met­ric de­sign with the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny.

“As min­is­ter, while we work on in­ves­ti­gat­ing any and all fur­ther en­gi­neer­ing so­lu­tions that may as­sist, I urge mo­torists to be ex­tra care­ful on the na­tion’s road­way. One life lost is too many. I will do all in the pow­er of the Min­istry to en­hance the safe­ty of the road in­fra­struc­ture, and I pray that dri­vers keep at the fore­front of their dri­ving be­hav­iour the tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with dri­ving at all times,” Sinanan said.

He ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of friends of Maraj.