This country’s latest road fatality has prompted the Barbados Road Safety Association (BRSA) to call for motorists and pedestrians alike to exercise greater caution on the
nation’s roadways.
President of the BRSA, Sharmane Roland-Bowen, made the call as she expressed sympathy to the family of the late Hanannia Reeves, a 13-year-old student of the Princess Margaret Secondary School, who was struck and killed by a vehicle on Tuesday evening.
She also took the opportunity to offer both groups some sage advice with respect to road safety.
‘No authority’
“Drivers and conductors of public service vehicles, in fact, motorists in general, do not have any authority to instruct or direct either pedestrian or vehicular traffic on our roads, and they should desist from doing it. If they continue to do it, they should be penalised if any mishap or misfortune occurs; they should hold part of the liability,” she said.
Roland-Bowen made the point as she contended that in respect of drivers of public transportation, their only responsibility is to get passengers safely to their destinations.
Therefore, she maintained that they should not seek to advise or to negotiate crossings for passengers, as doing so could be putting persons at risk of being struck.
“Also drivers in general, when approaching or overtaking vehicles, they have horns, they need to blast their horns when approaching or overtaking a PSV or Transport Board bus that has stopped at a bus stop. Note I said blast, and not blow or sound the horn, blast it so people would be aware of their presence and take greater caution in crossing the street at that point. The horn is a warning device and they need to utilise it as such to alert persons who might be seeking to cross either in front or behind such vehicles,” she maintained.
Roland-Bowen made the point as she called on the adult population in this country to set better examples of road safety for the younger generations.
Show children the right way
Her comments came as she noted that adults were the chief culprits of poor pedestrian behaviour and she is adamant that they have a duty to show our children by their actions, how to safely use our roads.
With that in mind, Roland-Bowen is encouraging pedestrians, wherever possible, to utilise the crosswalks, and when at bus stops to always wait until a vehicle moves off to cross so that they can clearly see both sides of the road, and approaching vehicles can also see them clearly.
“Just wait a minute or two until that vehicle completely moves,” she pleaded.
(JRT)