Rhon­dor Dowlat-Ros­tant

and Carisa Lee

A small road traf­fic ac­ci­dent in El So­cor­ro has now turned in­to a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter one of the dri­vers knocked down the oth­er fol­low­ing a con­fronta­tion.

The two men were ar­gu­ing af­ter they could not agree on how and where the car should be re­paired.

A video that be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing on­line on Thurs­day showed both men ar­gu­ing, then one of them dri­ving off a short dis­tance and turn­ing his ve­hi­cle around. while the oth­er ap­proach his car with a ma­chete.

The dri­ver then slammed in­to the man who was ap­proach­ing on foot with the ma­chete.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred on Don Miguel Ex­ten­sion Road.

The in­jured man was in sta­ble con­di­tion yes­ter­day af­ter­noon af­ter un­der­go­ing surgery. He sus­tained in­juries to his hip and left artery.

An eye­wit­ness said that af­ter the ac­ci­dent, the dri­ver ad­mit­ted he was wrong but sug­gest­ed to the vic­tim that they car­ry the ve­hi­cle to a re­pair shop. The vic­tim dis­agreed.

He said the vic­tim asked for the next dri­ver’s in­sur­ance but in­stead that dri­ver re­turned to his car, which led to the in­ci­dent.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that up to late yes­ter­day no re­port was made to the po­lice.

Crim­i­nal De­fence At­tor­ney Criston J. Williams and Co. Keron Ramkhal­whan said the dri­ver - based on the video - could face two charges.

“At face val­ue, the charges that may be prof­fered against the dri­ver may be one dan­ger­ous dri­ving or at­tempt­ed mur­der,” Ramkhal­whan said.

But he said the footage may have thor­ough­ly ex­plained the en­tire sit­u­a­tion and Ramkhal­whan may have a rea­son for his ac­tion.

“It may be stat­ed that he was act­ing in such a man­ner that he hon­est­ly and in­stinc­tive­ly thought it was nec­es­sary for pro­tect­ing his life.”

Ch­agua­nas stab­bing

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, a taxi dri­ver was stabbed sev­er­al times about the body Thurs­day af­ter­noon in what po­lice de­scribed as a road rage in­ci­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, around noon, the vic­tim, a 35-year-old man from Wood­brook was dri­ving near One Wood­brook Place, St James when he was re­port­ed­ly giv­en a bad dri­ve by the sus­pect, a PH dri­ver. 

The vic­tim told po­lice he con­tin­ued dri­ving when the sus­pect ma­noeu­vred to­wards his ve­hi­cle sev­er­al times. 

Po­lice say the vic­tim brought his ve­hi­cle to a stop along the West­ern Main Road, St James due to traf­fic con­di­tions and then came out and ap­proached the sus­pect whose ve­hi­cle was di­rect­ly be­hind his.

Po­lice say the sus­pect be­came en­raged and stabbed the vic­tim, caus­ing in­jury to his chest and ab­domen. 

The sus­pect then drove off.

The vic­tim was tak­en by po­lice of­fi­cers to the St James Med­ical Com­plex where he was treat­ed and list­ed in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

An angry driver leaves his car to confront another driver in Chaguanas yesterday.

Ch­agua­nas fist fight

In Ch­agua­nas, footage that cir­cu­lat­ed on­line yes­ter­day, showed a dri­ver get­ting out of his ve­hi­cle and con­fronting an­oth­er dri­ver.

The two men start­ed fist fight­ing for sev­er­al min­utes be­fore an­oth­er man in­ter­vened to sep­a­rate them.

The video al­so showed peo­ple emerg­ing from both ve­hi­cles and walk­ing away while the fight oc­curred.

The video was cap­tured by a dash­cam of an­oth­er ve­hi­cle.

Po­lice, Ar­rive Alive re­spond

Po­lice Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor, Brent Bat­son de­scribed the in­ci­dents as “ex­treme­ly con­cern­ing”.

He said, “Al­though the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Raod Traf­fic Act does not speak to acts of “road rage” as any cat­e­go­ry of of­fence, un­der Sec­tion 26 (1) of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act the of­fence of “Wan­ton or Fu­ri­ous Dri­ving” states that “Any per­son, hav­ing the charge of any ve­hi­cle, who, by wan­ton or fu­ri­ous dri­ving, or oth­er wil­ful mis­con­duct, or by wil­ful ne­glect, does or caus­es to be done any bod­i­ly harm to any per­son what­so­ev­er, is li­able to im­pris­on­ment for four years.”

He said this would ap­ply to where the dri­ver ac­tu­al­ly used the ve­hi­cle to cause harm to an­oth­er per­son.

“Sad­ly, road rage is an in­ter­na­tion­al phe­nom­e­non, the hu­man fac­tor where the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal stress­es may some­times be trig­gered by un­in­ten­tion­al act of oth­er dri­vers be­ing in­ter­pret­ed as per­son­al at­tack re­sult­ing in fits of anger and rage re­sult­ing in a spec­trum of an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour rang­ing from ver­bal abuse to vi­o­lent phys­i­cal at­tacks on an­oth­er per­son,” he added.

Head of Ar­rive Alive, Sharon In­gle­field said road rage is un­ac­cept­able and urged all dri­vers to “re­spect the laws and law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in­clud­ing traf­fic war­dens, po­lice of­fi­cers and li­cens­ing of­fi­cers.”

In­gle­field called on ar­ro­gant dri­vers to ex­am­ine them­selves and work out why they are be­ing so an­gry.

“They need to find out what is caus­ing this anger and it is im­por­tant to ex­am­ine what is caus­ing this anger and do some ret­ro­spec­tion.”

In­gle­field al­so sug­gest­ed that ar­ro­gant dri­vers go for help.

“Seek pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling and take dri­ver be­hav­iour class­es, do re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and ex­am­ine what’s caus­ing this and why you are be­hav­ing ir­ra­tional­ly.”

In­gle­field dis­closed that Ar­rive Alive has been con­duct­ing be­hav­iour­al class­es for the past six years and in­tends to height­en class­es on be­half of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, “One can reg­is­ter for these class­es on­line by go­ing to the ar­rive alive web­site.”