Proceed with caution

IT is truly amazing that with the recent focus being placed squarely on the state of our roads that persons are still not more cautious as they go about their daily commute.

 

With what could only be described as pothole mania for the past few weeks, one thing that we should all remember to do – slow down.

 

These potholes do not discriminate. From the most luxurious car, buses, bicycles, if we drive through one at a high speed there is the potential that there will be some damage.

 

I nearly lost a wheel cap after hitting into a pothole in December, but thanks to another driver drawing it to my attention I was able to retrieve it. That taught me a valuable lesson. You must pay attention to the road ahead in the most literal sense, until the problem is fixed.

 

While my intention was not to address how to tackle potholes in this week’s commentary, surely we must recognise that driving too closely behind another vehicle leaves very little visibility of any damage to the road and even less manoeuvrability. While some argue that to dodge one pothole you may end up in another one, one could only suggest that persons actually slow down so that the impact would be minimal.

 

Many of our roads were not that smooth to begin with, but at the end of November we were hit with some rain that did some serious damage. Small cracks turned into holes, because of the sheer volume and velocity of the floodwaters that were raging on the roads.

 

After the water subsided we saw that it had caused tremendous damage. In fact if we were to quantify it, I’m sure it could run us up into the hundreds of thousands if not millions in damages.

 

With the country going through economic challenges, we realistically didn’t think that the problem could be fixed overnight. It is heartening to see however that there is an attempt by the Ministry of Transport and Works to tackle the problem in a systematic way. Certainly we all may think that the roads that we take should be dealt with first, but we know that won’t be the case. We can only hope that the high density areas will be addressed in short order.

 

What was instructive though were the Ministry officials who said that not all potholes can be fixed easily. So where the untrained eye may think that it can take a few minutes to fix, the general understanding is that resources would be wasted on a project which realistically will require the entire stretch of road to be repaved. There was also the concern that tossing asphalt into a hole by MTW teams is a waste of time, particularly after heavy rainfall. We can only hope that the Minister’s recent comment on the issue with regards to using more machinery will mean that in more of these areas the asphalt will actually be compacted.

 

So again, these are issues that have been plaguing the island for sometime, even memorialised in song. Certainly in due course these issues will be ironed out, in the meantime the sensible thing would be to stay vigilant, keep a safe distance behind vehicles and reduce speed, particularly along roads less travelled.