Shas­tri Boodan

Two peo­ple lost their lives in the ear­ly hours of Sat­ur­day morn­ing fol­low­ing a trag­ic road traf­fic ac­ci­dent in Ch­agua­nas.

The vic­tims, a man and a woman of African de­scent be­lieved to be be­tween 25 and 35 years old, were trav­el­ling south along the Uri­ah But­ler High­way in a black Hyundai Elantra, reg­is­tra­tion PDL 7222, when the ve­hi­cle veered off the car­riage­way. It slammed in­to a poui tree on the east­ern side of the high­way be­fore over­turn­ing and com­ing to rest up­side down amidst a clus­ter of co­conut trees.

The crash oc­curred ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 me­tres north of the Munroe Road over­pass, near a pri­vate dri­ve­way. The im­pact was so se­vere that both oc­cu­pants were thrown from the ve­hi­cle, which came to rest on its roof. Po­lice con­firmed that the fa­tal col­li­sion took place around 5.30 am. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are ex­pect­ed to re­view CCTV footage from near­by prop­er­ties as part of their en­quiries. The iden­ti­ties of the de­ceased have not yet been con­firmed.

The scene was at­tend­ed by of­fi­cers from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion and the Freeport High­way Pa­trol. Cor­po­ral Le­Gendre of Ch­agua­nas has been as­signed to lead the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Ex­tend­ing sym­pa­thies on be­half of Ar­rive Alive TT, Pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field ex­pressed con­do­lences to the griev­ing fam­i­lies. She al­so called on the au­thor­i­ties to ex­am­ine the lo­ca­tion of the crash and con­sid­er the in­stal­la­tion of safe­ty bar­ri­ers.

“We are deeply sad­dened by the loss of lives on our na­tions. Once again we ap­peal to all dri­vers to slow down. Speed is the biggest killer on the roads this year, when you in­crease your speed you in­crease risks to your­self, your pas­sen­gers and all road users,” she said.