Letter of the Day | Driving in Jamaica needs off-roading skills

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Jamaicans’ affinity for sports utility vehicles is understandable since our roads offer a near off-road experience. If you happen to drive a smaller car, then it will take great care and skill to navigate the hostile terrain we call roads. Drivers routinely have to dodge capacious potholes. In fact, many accidents, some fatal, have occurred as a result of violent swerves to avoid these craters. When it rains, roads become veritable rivers. Knowing how to respond when a car begins to float is, therefore, essential. Recently, after just five minutes of rain, Red Hills Road (river) was in spate! Thankfully, I was able to find a less treacherous route to get to my destination.

There have been several protests against the deplorable road conditions across the island. Some of them have been dismissed as mere political mischief, yet it’s hard to validate this reasoning when the roads in question are clearly in a state of disrepair. The truth is that members of parliament, for whatever reason, seem unresponsive to complaints about the state of roads in their constituencies and only when constituents mount fiery protests to bring their plight to national attention, can they begin to hope that action may be taken to fix them.

Jamaicans are among the most-heavily taxed people in the world and it is a completely reasonable expectation that our taxes be used to maintain our roads, instead, we are made to feel that we should be satisfied with their disastrous condition. However, the fact is, bad roads induce economic stress on motorists daily. Why should our citizens constantly fear the expense of car parts, repairs and accidents every time they venture on the road?

Unfortunately, a piecemeal approach is often taken to road repair. Instead of repaving the roads with quality material, roads are shoddily patched. On the other hand, poor drainage results in perfectly good roads being utterly destroyed when it rains. Instead of reacting to protests and calamity, a plan must be made to fix the road network once and for all. I realise that this appeal is trite, but perhaps our collective persistence will one day yield results.

MARIA MUTIDJO

Teacher