KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With nu­mer­ous road traf­fic ac­ci­dents over the East­er hol­i­day week­end, mo­torists are be­ing urged to ex­er­cise greater cau­tion on the na­tion’s roads, as wet weath­er con­di­tions and in­creased en­force­ment co­in­cide with grow­ing con­cern over crash­es and im­paired dri­ving.

Co­or­di­na­tor of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice Road Safe­ty Pro­gramme, Sgt Brent Bat­son, has warned that April show­ers are cre­at­ing haz­ardous dri­ving con­di­tions that re­quire mo­torists to ad­just their be­hav­iour to main­tain con­trol of their ve­hi­cles.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice(TTPS) has not­ed with con­cern a num­ber of road traf­fic crash­es which have oc­curred across the coun­try’s road net­works,” Bat­son said, point­ing to a fa­tal col­li­sion along the Rivulet Road in Cou­va in which Tra­cy Joseph lost her life when her car and a pick-up col­lid­ed on Sat­ur­day.

Bat­son not­ed that rain­fall can leave oils on the road­way, re­duc­ing trac­tion and in­creas­ing the risk of ac­ci­dents.

“Light rains would have raised some of the oils from the road­ways, which presents a haz­ardous con­di­tion which is best coun­tered with a re­duc­tion in speed and in­creased fol­low­ing dis­tances be­tween ve­hi­cles,” he said.

Bat­son urged dri­vers to en­sure their ve­hi­cles are prop­er­ly main­tained for wet con­di­tions, in­clud­ing tyres, brak­ing sys­tems and wind­screen wipers, and to adopt safer dri­ving habits.

“Dri­vers are re­mind­ed that it is cru­cial that they re­duce ve­hi­cle speed when ne­go­ti­at­ing cor­ners and ap­proach­ing in­ter­sec­tions, and if vis­i­bil­i­ty is poor, turn on the ve­hi­cle head­lights to en­sure oth­er road users are aware of your pres­ence on the road,” he said.

He al­so stressed the im­por­tance of ba­sic safe­ty mea­sures, in­clud­ing wear­ing seat­belts and avoid­ing dis­trac­tions.

Mean­while, the TTPS stepped up en­force­ment op­er­a­tions over the East­er pe­ri­od, con­duct­ing a tar­get­ed an­ti-drink-dri­ving ex­er­cise in Port-of-Spain, which re­sult­ed in 15 ar­rests.

The op­er­a­tion, con­duct­ed along Park Street be­tween 12 am and 5 am yes­ter­day, led to 14 dri­vers be­ing ar­rest­ed for dri­ving with breath al­co­hol lev­els ex­ceed­ing the pre­scribed lim­it, and one per­son for dri­ving with­out ever hav­ing been is­sued a dri­ver’s per­mit.

Of­fi­cers al­so car­ried out ex­ten­sive stop-and-search checks, screen­ing 176 ve­hi­cles and oc­cu­pants for il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

The TTPS said the co­or­di­nat­ed ex­er­cise in­volved mul­ti­ple units and was part of on­go­ing ef­forts to curb im­paired dri­ving and im­prove road safe­ty dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od.

It re­it­er­at­ed its call for mo­torists to avoid al­co­hol when dri­ving, obey traf­fic laws, and make re­spon­si­ble choic­es, not­ing that in­creased ve­hic­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ty is ex­pect­ed through­out the East­er week­end.

The warn­ings come amid re­ports of mul­ti­ple se­ri­ous road traf­fic ac­ci­dents across the coun­try in re­cent days.

Re­ports in­di­cate that ac­ci­dents were record­ed in sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing Pe­tit Val­ley, Mt Hope, Port-of-Spain, Ch­aguara­mas, El Do­ra­do, Gas­par­il­lo, Gol­con­da, Ma­coya, Ca­roni, La Hor­quet­ta and Curepe, fur­ther­ing on­go­ing con­cerns about road safe­ty as rainy con­di­tions per­sist.