Solution needed urgently, says BRSA president
President of the Barbados Road Safety Association (BRSA), Sharmane Roland-Bowen and Public Relations Officer of BRSA, Richard Cox, at the Awards Ceremony.
YET another voice is being added to those that have been calling on Government to fix the roads.
Speaking to the media yesterday morning after the Barbados Road Safety Association’s Awards Ceremony, President Sharmane Roland-Bowen was adamant that there are way too many potholes on the nation’s roads, which she said are not only posing a danger to road safety and vehicles, but are also likely one of the reasons the roads are heavily congested.
“The situation with the potholes throughout Barbados needs to be looked at and urgently, because what a pothole is, is not only a defect in the road, we see it as a hazard to motorists travelling on the particular road because obviously not all persons drive defensively, meaning that not all persons scan the road as they drive and then they come up on these potholes at the last minute and their first instinct is to swerve to avoid landing in these potholes, and by doing that they can cause a collision, they can cause the car following them to run into the back of them or they can swerve and hit someone,” she explained.
With that in mind, she is beseeching Government to recognise the dangers that the potholes pose and find a long-term remedy for the solution soon.
She acknowledged that Government has started to fix some of the holes, which she said is a “good start”, but she said more needs to be done. In that vein, she is adamant that simply patching the potholes is not enough, as heavy rains can easily undo the fix. As such, she is suggesting that they could probably look at utilising concrete for road construction, which might be more durable.
“Areas that have some of the big ones – you know, the pot wells, because they are no longer holes they’ve become wells – we would like to see some of these places identified so that persons would know they are coming up. Whether they use reflective paint or some sort of identification, so persons will be alerted to the fact that there is a danger there and they need to slow down and try to navigate that pothole appropriately, and not pose a danger to other road users,” she said.
The Road Safety Association President’s comments came as she noted that not only are some main arterial roads in need of repair, but a number of “back roads” are in a poor state as well, which she suggested causes persons to divert from them and create congestion on arterial roads. She is therefore of the opinion that if those roads can be fixed, that would ease traffic congestion. Roland-Bowen used the Carmichael Road as an example, explaining that it could take a lot of pressure off Highway 5, but it is “ridiculous” and desperately in need of repairs.
“We don’t only want to look at the potholes, we want to look at the congestion because we know what congestion leads to – it leads to stress, it leads to aggressive driving, it can also contribute to road rage… The Government, they have a lot to do and we hope that with 2016 going out and 2017 coming in, that they have their plans in place and provisions in place to make our roads safer and more traversable for all road users,” she said. (JRT)
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