Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Ro­han Sinanan has said that there is no blight or su­per­sti­tious force lead­ing to ac­ci­dents at the in­ter­sec­tion of the Ma­coya Road and Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, de­spite sev­er­al ac­ci­dents there in re­cent times.

The min­is­ter vis­it­ed the in­ter­sec­tion with po­lice and min­istry of­fi­cials yes­ter­day and said he had not­ed the in­crease in ve­hic­u­lar col­li­sions.

“While there are dif­fer­ing ex­pla­na­tions for the seem­ing­ly grow­ing trend of ve­hic­u­lar con­flicts at this par­tic­u­lar in­ter­sec­tion, the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion along with oth­er lead­ing glob­al au­thor­i­ties on road safe­ty pos­tu­late that most road traf­fic ac­ci­dents are avoid­able. There is no “blight” or oth­er su­per­sti­tious force con­trol­ling the out­comes at Ma­coya Road and the PBR In­ter­sec­tion,” the Min­is­ter said in a news re­lease af­ter the vis­it.

He said that as it re­lates to the vicin­i­ty, it ap­peared that hu­man er­ror was the pre­vail­ing cause of the in­ci­dents.

“Speed­ing, a lack of full at­ten­tion while dri­ving, dis­re­gard for traf­fic sig­nals and signs, and ne­glect for the well-be­ing of oth­er vul­ner­a­ble road users are all com­mon cul­prits in the nar­ra­tive of road traf­fic ac­ci­dents,” he said.

Sinanan said that in seek­ing to en­hance safe­ty mea­sures at the site, the min­istry will move to place ad­di­tion­al traf­fic con­trol de­vices, in­clud­ing in­for­ma­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry sig­nage, along with rum­ble strips, a fea­ture that alerts dri­vers by send­ing a tac­tile vi­bra­tion and rum­bling sound through the ve­hi­cle.

He not­ed that over the past five years, the min­istry has spear­head­ed sev­er­al new el­e­ments to the sys­tem of traf­fic man­age­ment and road safe­ty, in­clud­ing the amend­ment of road traf­fic laws to in­tro­duce a De­mer­it Points Sys­tem to mon­i­tor and re­ha­bil­i­tate er­rant dri­vers and a New Traf­fic Tick­et­ing Sys­tem.

He al­so point­ed out the re­con­sti­tu­tion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Road Safe­ty Coun­cil, a body that will guide a mul­ti-sec­toral ap­proach to im­prov­ing road safe­ty in T&T.

Its ma­jor re­spon­si­bil­i­ties will in­clude set­ting quan­ti­ta­tive road safe­ty tar­gets for the coun­try and fi­nal­is­ing the Na­tion­al Road Safe­ty Plan 2020-2030.

“On the oc­ca­sion of this sa­cred Eid-ul- Fitr week­end, I would like to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­mind dri­vers of the tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that comes with dri­ving at all times. The role of per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty can­not be over­stat­ed. It is my hope that cit­i­zens would care enough about this is­sue to en­act the change that is nec­es­sary. We must be will­ing to abide by the laws and care enough to do the right thing, as se­ri­ous road traf­fic ac­ci­dents take a tremen­dous toll on in­di­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies and their com­mu­ni­ties,” Sinanan said.

“I ask that as a so­ci­ety we re­mem­ber and re­flect on the sons, daugh­ters, moth­ers and fa­thers we have lost to trag­ic road ac­ci­dents and the im­pact on gen­er­a­tions to come. As the lead au­thor­i­ty on mat­ters per­tain­ing to road safe­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port will con­tin­ue to im­ple­ment oth­er ex­ten­sive changes and up­grades to the traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tem, but the largest and most in­flu­en­tial stake­hold­er will al­ways be dri­vers,” he added.

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