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| I love to hop buses. On the day of the southbound accident, I had thankfully hopped in another direction |
IN NO aspect of illegal activity is it so poignantly and publicly identifiable that laws can exist to high heaven, but if law enforcement is slack it's like spinning a top in mud.
Two days ago two women were killed on the roads of Trinidad and Tobago ... riding the bus; supposedly one of the safest forms of transportation in this twin-isle republic.
Hey, I have a passionate love-hate relationship with the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC), mainly because there is so much evidence that there is little consideration for what the S in the acronym stands.
I always have bus tickets in my wallet. I constantly wait long hours for a bus in any direction. I often face off with fellow commuters, bus drivers and ... wait ... wait ...
Sorry. I digress.
I could write a book about PTSC and its failings, but not today, not today. Because today I do not believe that PTSC employees were at fault.
No. I believe lack of law enforcement on the nation's highways and byways was at the heart of this collision. There is too much lawbreaking on the roads, and not enough is being done to curb it.
The story thus far was that a "big truck tried to pull away from another big truck, crossed the median on the highway and plowed into a bus full of people." Damaging many. Killing two. Oh ... f***!
Accident? They happen?
On the movie Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg's character points out that in Britain they no longer refer to collisions as "accidents": because it implies that no one was at fault.
Here's what I culturally know: a big truck plows into anything? Chances are the big truck was at fault. Everybody sees how most of these fellahs drive. I mean, buses are big, too, but the driver's have protocol they are supposed to follow or face consequences.
There will be the odd bus driver whose style is a little hell's bells for peddling the public around; but for the most part they stick to a sometimes frustratingly slower standard "speed."
Not so big truck drivers and their, "We doh stop fuh nobody!" and "We big so get out de way!" driving agendas. Ask anybody! Even the drivers themselves, if they are to be honest, will tell you they speed, they bad-drive, they intentionally intimidate.
Many a time I have been on a bus and seen a big truck take pains to edge out the public vehicle. And they do it -- are allowed to do it day in day out. It was just a matter of time.
The thing is, people say, "Everybody does drive bad."
Like they're proud. Like when they say, "Trinis always late"; or "Wining is we culture." These are not things of which to be proud! Not when it kills people. Why does it have to come to killing people!
Last year a driver ploughed into 14 cyclists on another national highway. Two people were killed then, too. When I looked it up on the Internet just now, there were two newspaper stories. Two.
Where's the follow-up? What happened to the driver? What were the facts at the core of the collision?
Road fatalities numbers and stories in this country make me sick. And people are still allowed to get away with driving like onagers. In fact, when the police sometimes seek to do their duty, people drive by in their cars and rib them with statements like, "Why all'yuh don't go catch some real criminals."
Oh, because everybody hates crime when a robbery goes south and somebody is murdered. But when it's a serial drunk, or a Fast-and-Furious wannabe-never-be, or some kid who got his license five seconds ago and thinks he can drive with one hand, who kills somebody, "It's an accident."
No, no, no. Actions have foreseeable results. Accidents are randomly recurring events.
E=mcâ‚‚ is not an accident. It is pure science.
You drive like s**t, you make s**t happen: that's SCIENCE. You should be held accountable! That's not my opinion. That's the LAW.
We have so many layers to this problem. There is rampant corruption in Licencing Office, including liberal selling of driving permits, to the extent that people don't even bother to try to be good drivers and learn the laws of the road.
Babies are being bought cars for graduating highschool, and given no concept of real achievement or the sense of responsibility that comes when you work to buy your own belongings.
Then there are the "boom-box" fools with their ridiculous decibel music who don't understand that loud noise causes ear damage, which in turn impairs motor skills (pun acknowledged).
Or the other idiots who try to talk on their phones while driving, knowing full well that we Trinbagonians are hard-wired to talk with our hands.
Then, again, when the police try to even just caution any such person about their dangerous, law-breaking inclinations, people drive by and bawl, "Go an' run down real criminals!"
Really? If only a cop had pulled over that speeding truck somewhere before the "accident."
Come good
Photo captions:
TOP: I like to hop buses. On the day of the accident, I hopped on the Santa Cruz special
SECOND: People feel so safe on the bus that nodding off is not an uncommon occurrence
AT LEFT: TnT front page headlines, including the caption referring to the "accident," and heart-wrenching images of the victims: one not meant to be on the bus; the other reading her bible.
Photos by Jhaye-Q
Photos by Jhaye-Q
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