Road safety is about prevention and not reaction.
This is the firm stance of President of the Barbados Road Safety Association Sharmane Roland-Bowen, who has highlighted some issues with the lighting along some of this nation’s streets, especially, on the highways.
Speaking in particular on the concrete jersey barriers separating the lanes of the four-lane sections of the ABC highway, she stated that it is critical that measures be put in place to ensure drivers could see these structures clearly when travelling at night.
“When you drive close to those jersey barriers and you cannot see them properly, it creates issues as sometimes persons end up hitting them and catapulting back into the adjacent lane, and there may be a vehicle there and that can be a collision too,” she stressed.
Speaking during a recent interview with The Barbados Advocate, Roland-Bowen insisted that one of the solutions to this could be the placement of reflective tape along the barriers to increase their visibility.
“Small, remedial measures can help. It is not a matter of just fixing the lights as we know that there is a problem with maintenance, and the lights may go out again, so use the tape as a backup measure so that in the case that any of the lights go, persons can still see the barriers clearly through the use of the reflective tape,” she said.
Roland-Bowen therefore urged the Ministry of Transport and Works to do what it could to address the issue as swiftly as possible.