KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As road fa­tal­i­ties surged in 2024, Ar­rive Alive Pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field is urg­ing the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT) to form a com­mit­tee to im­ple­ment crit­i­cal road safe­ty mea­sures, par­tic­u­lar­ly to pro­tect pedes­tri­ans.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, In­gle­field re­vealed that pedes­tri­an deaths reached alarm­ing lev­els, ac­count­ing for 45 per cent of road fa­tal­i­ties.

 “Cer­tain­ly, that is a rec­om­men­da­tion we would like to make to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port—that in­ter­ven­tions to make our roads more for­giv­ing, to save pedes­tri­an lives, is crit­i­cal,” she said.

In­gle­field high­light­ed the so­cio-eco­nom­ic fac­tors be­hind pedes­tri­an fa­tal­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly on high­ways. Many pedes­tri­ans are pre­oc­cu­pied with pro­vid­ing for their fam­i­lies rather than pri­ori­tis­ing road safe­ty, she said.

Ar­rive Alive sta­tis­tics show a sharp rise in fa­tal ac­ci­dents, in­creas­ing from 89 in 2023 to 104 in 2024—a 17 per cent spike. Cor­re­spond­ing­ly, road deaths rose by 16 per cent, from 95 to 110.

In­gle­field at­trib­uted many fa­tal­i­ties to ex­ces­sive speed, em­pha­sis­ing that reck­less dri­ving re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor. While ac­knowl­edg­ing that rac­ing is a le­git­i­mate sport, she warned that pub­lic roads lack the con­trolled en­vi­ron­ments, safe­ty equip­ment, and train­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with pro­fes­sion­al rac­ing.

“Our roads are not race­tracks. We need to re­duce our speed and adapt to road con­di­tions that are far from per­fect. Pot­holes, in­ad­e­quate bar­ri­ers, and poor­ly marked roads con­tribute to se­ri­ous col­li­sions.”

Be­hav­iour­al is­sues and risk fac­tors

Over­con­fi­dence among dri­vers al­so plays a role, In­gle­field not­ed, as many be­lieve they can avoid se­ri­ous ac­ci­dents. She point­ed out that most road fa­tal­i­ties in­volved men aged around 35, while fa­tal­i­ties among younger dri­vers had de­creased.

“It’s the ad­ven­tur­ous male trait that push­es some to take un­nec­es­sary risks,” she added.

In­gle­field sug­gest­ed that me­dia, in­clud­ing movies, so­cial me­dia, and even chil­dren’s toys, glam­or­ised speed, in­flu­enc­ing dri­vers to take risks. This trend is com­pound­ed by wide­spread dis­re­gard for road safe­ty laws, such as fail­ing to wear seat­belts, dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol, and dis­tract­ed dri­ving.

She stressed the con­se­quences of drunk dri­ving, not­ing that con­vic­tions could re­sult in life­time crim­i­nal records, po­ten­tial­ly bar­ring in­di­vid­u­als from en­ter­ing uni­ver­si­ties or ob­tain­ing visas for first-world coun­tries.

While the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has re­ceived ac­co­lades for road safe­ty ef­forts, In­gle­field ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment at the re­ver­sal of progress. In 2021, the na­tion achieved a 50 per cent re­duc­tion in road fa­tal­i­ties over ten years, earn­ing in­ter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. How­ev­er, since then, ac­ci­dents and deaths have risen sharply.

In Jan­u­ary 2023, the TTPS re­ceived the MOWT’s Wood­side En­er­gy Road Safe­ty Award for its ef­forts. Lat­er that year, the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch won 27 awards for ex­cel­lence in traf­fic en­force­ment, lead­er­ship, and ed­u­ca­tion. De­spite these achieve­ments, In­gle­field said the mo­men­tum has not been sus­tained.

“There is al­ways a need for more en­force­ment in T&T,” she said, urg­ing au­thor­i­ties to pro­vide po­lice with the nec­es­sary tools to per­form their du­ties ef­fec­tive­ly.

She re­it­er­at­ed the need for sys­temic changes to make roads safer, in­clud­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al im­prove­ments and stricter en­force­ment of road safe­ty laws. “This is a crit­i­cal is­sue that re­quires im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion,” she con­clud­ed.