THAT BARBADOS HAS NOT recorded a serious incident of road rage resulting in physical injuries is nothing short of miraculous. The ingredients are all there for motorists to become very frustrated when using many of our roads.
Potholes abound, putting extra pressure on the road network, and it is not that the situation is so because of heavy and constant rainfall or an excessive number of heavy-duty vehicles carrying massive loads. Put the blame on a lack of effective maintenance by the Ministry of Transport and Works.
No amount of promises and talk from Minister Michael Lashley is helping the situation. The roads are bad and it is taking too long for the potholes to be patched.
Take the case of Whitehall Road, St Michael. It is a driver’s nightmare. But as bad as this is and has been for a long time, Well Gap, Cave Hill, not far away, should be avoided at any and all cost. It will damage any vehicle.
Then there is the stretch of road from Hothersal Turning to Market Hill, St George that is horrible by day and eerie at night. The most amazing situation with the area just after Locust Hall going to St Helen’s is that after more than eight years of a planned upgrade there seems to be no end in sight for the project.
The inability to complete the road works at the entrance to Kensington New Road from Baxters Road will make even an angry man blush. It has been weeks, rather than months, that work on an already difficult road for pedestrians and motorists has been either at a standstill or moving more slowly than a sloth.
The same approach applies to the work being done on Whitehall and that exhibited at Wanstead where a small section of a pathway was being extended and some of the rails by the bridge repaired. No one was ever on this job after 1 p.m. on any day actual work was done.
But what will trigger an outburst of anger is the headache motorists encounter on any weekday during regular working hours at Eagle Hall by the junction of President Kennedy Drive up to the traffic lights, and on a section of Spooner’s Hill between Kew Road and Long Gap.
At month end, on Friday evenings or the day before or after a public holiday, the hill in Spooner’s Hill is an unpopular area for motorists. It becomes one big set of confusion and as a result side roads have become major thoroughfares.
In all this confusion, it seems safe to say the MTW technocrats have quietly withdrawn from it all. Clearly, they are unaware of the hardships, inconvenience and challenges motorists face from Sunday to Saturday on the roads. (ES)
