For about half an hour on the evening of Tuesday, September 5, 2016, I was the only driver who was not exceeding the speed limit along the Uriah Butler Highway between the intersection with the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway and San Fernando.
This means that there were scores of law-breakers merrily passing by—some glancing scornfully at the little Suzuki coasting along at the prescribed 80 kph, some swerving boastfully ahead of me then—after slowing long enough for me to read the religious slogans on their heavily tinted rear glasses (it’s “blessed day” not “bless day”)—accelerating to reach smoke-producing speeds. The rest were simply going about their business at 100, 120 kph, 160 kph. No fuss.
Just three months ago, the sudden, devastating news that speed limits had existed on our public roads for many, many years generated quite a stir. The cries of shock and agony came from all quarters. Otherwise sensible people argued for a de facto increase in the speed limit to 100 kph pending a revision of road regulations. Facebook became the platform of choice for 100 kph-plus advocates. The online activists were acquiring “likes” by the hundreds and became even more popular than their lactose intolerant, anti-vax and gluten sensitive counterparts.
I even provided free advice on the formation of a Trinidad Island wide Indignant Drivers Association (TIIDA), complete with a campaign manifesto that freed us up to speed, litter and defy the laws of physics by keeping our bodies from smashing into the windscreen without the assistance of a seat belt.
But here was a “broken glass” staring us in the face. Incivility so interwoven into average daily life that its breach, through the imposition of order, appeared criminally subversive. “We dey normal, normal,” as they say.
Then, citing “technical” requirements such as road markings and cable barriers, Transport Minister Fitzgerald Hinds’ several patronising, paternalistic pronouncements on the issue began to sound more and more like the retort of a protective parent denying sweets to a roomful of noisy children. It was clear to me then, as it is now, there is general feeling in official quarters that the motoring public simply cannot be trusted with an increased speed limit.
It’s a disturbing point to ponder. Can we really trust ourselves at 100 kph? Or do we keep just enough sweeties in the jar to prevent tooth decay and early onset of diabetes?
To be truthful, I share such a concern, especially since you know, and I know, that following hot and sweaty enforcement efforts by the police, everything will be back to the normal chaos within a short space of time when they get busy catching bandits. If 80 kph is the speed limit and the average speed is already 100 kph, the new normal will not be less than 110 kph. Trust me on this one.
You see, if the detection rate for murder is under nine per cent, the detection rate for breaking the speed limit has to be in the order of .0001 per cent. Go right ahead, mathematicians, make my day.
Okay, it’s not the same thing, but at one time in the past, I do recall that “road deaths” almost kept pace with murders. The fact also is that someone driving at 160 kph on the highway, weaving in and out of the various lanes is, in my view, guilty of the kind of criminal negligence that has as much deadly potential as a loaded gun.
Though I am not a busy road traveller, I have only witnessed one “speed gun” operation in progress since its introduction a few months ago. On that memorable occasion, I was actually able to look left and right and recognise people in the cars next to mine. There seemed to actually be a sense of community as drivers looked knowingly at each other, only waiting for the squad cars to disappear in the rear view before, without a twitch, stepping on the gas to themselves vanish in the distance.
The thing is that nothing undermines the law more than wilful blindness to its transgression or, worse, official neglect of it. “Who letting the cocaine pass” seems, in that context, somewhat comparable with “who letting the speeders pass.”
I wonder under which agenda item for the recent crime summit were these issues covered. I mean, if the whipping of children in school made it, blood-letting on our roads must have been there somewhere.
But, of course, there they went again. Hot and sweaty. Lash two children, hang a few adults. Pass two laws. Increase the penalties for others. The leaders’ summit on crime seemed to be like a political speed gun, selectively flashed for show along the highway but grossly ineffective over time against deep-seated lawlessness.
While we fiddle, somebody making the speeders pass.
