Being road safe

Born out of a meeting between the Mt Hope Village Council and the St Joseph police, a road safety project was developed to reduce the danger to students on the nation’s roads.

The meeting was held to discuss issues of crime in the community and the topic of the risks to students crossing the Eastern Main Road and the Priority Bus Route, as well as the possibility of them being ambushed from people hidden behind containers and the trucks of various businesses parked along the street was raised.

The project started with Mt Hope Secondary School and was expanded to Success Laventille Secondary School as the project’s coordinator, Nicholas Cumberbatch volunteered at Success, and PTA president at Mt Hope, Onika Callender, was also the PTA vice president at Success.

“It was out of that concern that we decided to do this project to help to educate the students about the risk, as well as, hopefully, in an indirect way, start the process of educating drivers about road safety,” said Cumberbatch.

The project involves several phases, the first of which was monitoring the students’ and motorists’ use of the roads and crosswalks near the schools.

The second, already completed step, was having all students from both schools attend road safety presentations given by the NGO, Arrive Alive.

Cumberbatch said the students learned several important lessons including the use of seatbelts, use of cell phones while crossing the street, use of crosswalks, and even how to properly cross the street.

The next phase, which is expected to take place this week, will be a supervised exercise in the use of the crosswalks with the assistance of police officers and traffic wardens. There would then be a competition for mural and banner designs, essay writing, and quizzes on the topic of road safety.

The last phase would be a road safety documentary. “We know it’s going to be a difficult thing but we hope the video documentary we produce will be part of a public awareness campaign for all schools and for the public in general.”

Between these phases, several stakeholder meetings would continue to take place. Cumberbatch said he, and the schools’ principals, were encouraged by stakeholder response and participation. These include Arrive Alive, TT Police Service; the parent teacher associations and students of both schools; the Mt Hope Village Council; Mt Lambert Village Council; Success Central Village Council; San Juan Laventille Regional Corporation; Traffic Management Branch and Traffic Warden Division of the Ministry of Works and Transport and businesses from both areas.

“It is hoped that they would be able to lend support and provide solutions. We also hope that when we get to the stage of infrastructure improvements, they would be able to assist in any way they can.”

When Sunday Newsday attended the February 21 meeting of stakeholders at Mt Hope, several issues and suggestions were presented.

Success Laventille PTA president Anthony Eastman said some taxi drivers of east Port of Spain, Laventille and Morvant areas, especially the private hire drivers, had no respect for the children, residents or elderly. He said they often sped near schools and did not stop for pedestrians at crosswalks. He said they also ignored traffic signs and pelican lights (flashing traffic lights with a button for pedestrians to push when they wanted to cross.)

He also noted that sections of the Eastern Main Road were one-way during certain hours and some motorists were not aware, endangering both motorists and pedestrians.

In addition, he said some parents were not listening to their children with regard to road safety as he personally saw a parent drag a child across the road even as the child was trying to tell the parent the right way to cross.

Some problems directly related to crosswalks were also identified. These included maxi taxi drivers stopping to pick up passengers on the pedestrian crossing, drivers parking on the crosswalk, students not using the crosswalk although it was only a few feet away from the corner, and crosswalks located where they are not easily noticed by motorists.

Mt Hope student representative Tyrese Haynes said he asked a few maxi drivers why they did not stop at the crosswalk. He said the drivers told him most of the time, when they stopped for students and the general public, they were waved off as the pedestrians were waiting for a maxi rather than crossing. Therefore, they no longer stop when they notice people standing at the crosswalk.

Several suggestions were made to tackle theses issues including having traffic wardens direct traffic and cross students during peak hours; better signage – more visible and early enough for motorists to adjust their course; make school zones with a reduced speed limit, crossing signs, speed signs, and school zone pavement markings to remind motorists to be careful.

One representative from Bermudez recommended that the schools make a road safety presentation part of their Form One orientation.

Other ideas included the expansion of the crosswalks to encompass the street corners at which students usually cross; installation of pelican nights; the identification of the best locations for crosswalks and their relocation; repainting faded crosswalks; and an Arrive Alive session with the parents and adult residents of the various communities.