GPF continues effort to reduce road fatalities – Traffic Chief

…accidents reduced by 22%, deaths by 20%

The Guyana Police Force, through its Traffic Department, continues to embark on a number of efforts in order to reduce the alarming rates of accidents and deaths while promoting safety consciousness on the country’s roadways.
Stemming from this mission, 26 ranks on Friday graduated from a remedial training programing which sought to enhance their capacity to better enforce the Traffic Laws of Guyana. This is according to Traffic Chief Dion Moore during a

graduation ceremony hosted at the Traffic Headquarters, in Kingston.
“We have recognized that there is a need for training, especially in the Traffic Department, to boost the level of discipline, tolerance and professionalism displayed by traffic ranks,” the Traffic Chief told ranks.
“Over a period, we have recognised that many of our traffic ranks, in their deportment, you would see a lot of things that are not pleasing; in the approach and way in which they communicate with members of the public, there are several complaints of them being improper, or at times unprofessional,” the Traffic Chief continued.
Moore went on to say that despite their recent inductions into the Guyana Police Force, such trainings are necessary to ensure the ranks carry out their responsibilities in a manner which will best benefit the country.
On that note, the Traffic Chief outlined the various ways in which the newly trained ranks would have benefited from the two weeks’ programme.
As such, he pointed out that even though they would have graduated from Police Training School, “there is still need for them to have a specialized training, in which we at Traffic Headquarters recognize that there is need for them to have proper traffic directional signals, communicate with members of the public, be able to identify offences, and (be acquainted with the) procedures in terms of addressing how the offences are to be adhered.”
The ceremony on Friday comes one week less than a year since the Traffic Department embarked on the “Safe Way” approach, which was established to address the alarming number of road fatalities recorded, especially in recent years.Even since the launch of this initiative, the Force has seen a slight decrease in accidents, as well as deaths resulting from those cases. In fact, this year projects a 22% decrease in the number of road accidents, which is paired with a 20% decrease in deaths. This gives a sum of 65 accidents within the past year with a total of 72 deaths.
At this time last year, there was a frightening total of 89 road accidents, from which 96 lives were lost.
However, despite the minor improvement, the Traffic Chief has indicated that his Department will not rest until fatalities are reduced to zero.
With that in mind, Moore conveyed, “Today, we can safely say that “Operation Safe Way” (did) bear us some amount of fruit. It is not pleasing, but it is a great achievement, and we are looking forward for the continued support from the members of the public to further reduce accidents and deaths by the end of this year.”