Care­ful dri­ving con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to na­tion build­ing. Road traf­fic ac­ci­dents are among the lead­ing caus­es of death world­wide. The Unit­ed Na­tions’ sec­ond Decade of Ac­tion for Road Safe­ty 2011-2020 sets an am­bi­tious goal to sta­bilise and then re­duce road deaths and in­juries by 50 per cent by 2030. The UN notes that “…the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of road traf­fic deaths and se­ri­ous in­juries are pre­ventable and that, de­spite some im­prove­ments in many coun­tries...they re­main a ma­jor pub­lic health and de­vel­op­ment prob­lem that has broad so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences which, if un­ad­dressed, may af­fect progress to­wards the achieve­ment of the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals, The Decade of Ac­tion is un­der­pinned by the Glob­al Plan, which is the guide for gov­ern­ments to achiev­ing the 2030 tar­get.”

This plan should be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to T&T’s na­tion­al road safe­ty strat­e­gy. On the af­ter­noon of Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 14, I was caught in grid­lock traf­fic near the Val­park Shop­ping Plaza, Val­sayn. As the me­dia re­port­ed, there was a sev­en-car smash-up which led to the traf­fic jam. Some of the cars were to­tal write-offs. Those in­jured were tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Thank God there were no fa­tal­i­ties. Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of Traf­fic, Gavin Si­mon, “urged dri­vers to be care­ful on the na­tion’s roads, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son.” He not­ed that for the year so far, po­lice had is­sued 5,000 tick­ets, many of them for speed­ing and breach of traf­fic signs (T&T Guardian).

Those who get be­hind a wheel to dri­ve have a heavy re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for pro­tect­ing pas­sen­gers, oth­er dri­vers, pedes­tri­ans, cy­clists, prop­er­ty etc. And think of the enor­mous eco­nom­ic hard­ship for fam­i­lies due to the loss of fam­i­ly bread­win­ners in road ac­ci­dents. Be­fore I dri­ve off, I al­ways seek God’s pro­tec­tion from ac­ci­dents, to be grant­ed fo­cus and alert­ness while dri­ving, and to make wise de­ci­sions on the road. Some­times, though, no mat­ter how care­ful one is, ac­ci­dents can oc­cur be­cause of the ac­tions of oth­er dri­vers.

I re­call wait­ing pa­tient­ly for traf­fic lights to change on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way, when I sud­den­ly ex­pe­ri­enced a rear-end col­li­sion. The dri­ver was most apolo­getic. Some­thing had fall­en from his pas­sen­ger seat and he reached down to pick it up - mis­cal­cu­lat­ing the dis­tance be­tween his ve­hi­cle and mine. And once while dri­ving to work on a high­way in Lon­don dur­ing win­ter, I hit black ice—a thin lay­er of high­ly trans­par­ent ice. In­stinc­tive­ly, I near­ly braked, but re­mem­bered that that is the wrong re­ac­tion. I took my foot off the ac­cel­er­a­tor and tried to steer straight. The car spun around and came to a stand­still when it hit the bar­ri­er on the fly­over near Brent Cross. If I had not tak­en a de­fen­sive dri­ving course, I may have end­ed up over the fly­over.

Dri­vers, be ful­ly aware of your sur­round­ings and re­main fo­cused sole­ly on dri­ving. Avoid all types of dis­trac­tions. The fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions of care­less dri­ving ex­tend far be­yond re­pair costs e.g. med­ical bills, in­creased in­sur­ance pre­mi­ums, le­gal fees, and po­ten­tial loss of in­come. A se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent can re­sult in le­gal con­se­quences, in­clud­ing fines, li­cence sus­pen­sion, or even im­pris­on­ment.

Sharon In­gle­field, head of the road safe­ty ad­vo­ca­cy group Ar­rive Alive, right­ly states that road safe­ty is every­one’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I agree with her call for an end to ag­gres­sive dri­ving, which she says con­tributes to pre­ventable tragedies. Ar­rive Alive saw a 16 per cent rise in road deaths in 2024, com­pared to 2023, with a to­tal of 110 fa­tal­i­ties in 2024.

Ar­rive Alive’s web­site has some use­ful in­ter­ven­tions need­ed if we are to re­duce se­ri­ous road col­li­sions, in­juries and fa­tal­i­ties on our na­tion’s roads. Some of these in­clude “im­proved ve­hi­cle stan­dards, bet­ter road en­gi­neer­ing and reg­u­lar main­te­nance (bar­ri­ers, sur­face of the roads, pave­ments, sig­nage, light­ing), up­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion and ac­com­pa­ny­ing en­force­ment op­tions... ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness, trans­par­ent and rig­or­ous li­cens­ing sys­tems, and con­tin­ued and im­proved train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of our emer­gency re­sponse ser­vices.”

Check out their Ve­hi­cle Safe­ty Tips e.g. “Be­fore start­ing, use the “POW­ER” check­list to en­sure your ve­hi­cle has enough petrol, flu­ids like en­gine oil, wa­ter in the ra­di­a­tor, check your lights, tyres, and wiper blades.” Prop­er ve­hi­cle main­te­nance can re­duce risk of ac­ci­dents.

Some risk fac­tors for road traf­fic ac­ci­dents in­clude: Drink dri­ving, speed­ing, not wear­ing a seat­belt, dis­trac­tions such as us­ing a mo­bile phone while dri­ving, reck­less dri­ving such as tail­gat­ing, weav­ing in and out of traf­fic, and run­ning red lights. Avoid dri­ving if you are im­paired, due to eg al­co­hol, drugs, pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion, fa­tigue, or pain.

Let’s build a more or­gan­ised, ef­fi­cient, and pros­per­ous na­tion by dri­ving safe­ly.