Home News “Get the animals off the road” – grieving mother calls for action...
The mother of a motorcyclist killed after slamming into cow, calls for authorities to seriously address animals on the roadway.
Twenty-five-year-old Jamal Hughes, a heavy-duty machine operator, died in the wee hours of Monday killed after the motorcycle he was driving collided with an unbranded cow along Main Street and Number 41 Street, Stanleytown, New Amsterdam.
Hughes of Glasgow, Greater New Amsterdam, was at the time driving a motorcycle, CP 2700, with Marashia Dehart, 24, of Stanleytown, as his pillion rider.
According to the police, Hughes was proceeding along the Public Road at a fast rate when the motorcycle collided with the unbranded cow, which was crossing the roadway. At the time, neither Hughes nor DeHart was wearing a safety helmet.
Hughes’ mother, Helianthe Peters told this publication that had the animal not been on the roadway, her son would not have met his demise.
“I don’t know if it’s speed or what. But I know kids today, when they get a bike, they like speeding. But still, if you are speeding, the animals are not supposed to be on the road. Because if the light was there, I know if my son crashed, I don’t think that he would break your neck and get a puncture in your lungs and all that stuff. If people look into this thing, especially the animals that are on the road,” she said.
The incident occurred during a downpour, Peters said.
“It was raining. The girl on the bike said so. It was a lot of rain, she said. They sheltered before and the rain wasn’t stopping. So, my son turned and said, let us go, it is just ride down there. And she said she got on the bike, and he started riding. She said the last word she said was, ‘Oh God’. And she said she fell off the bike, and he just kept sliding. When she sees it was two cows on the road with the bike, flipping, flipping on the road with the cows. But she said the road was very dark and the two cows’ head and tail, a black one and a white one, was on the road. And the two cows had injuries. One of the cows escaped, and they caught one.”
The woman expressed concern about animals roaming the roads, noting that many are often unbranded. She recounted that one of the cows involved in the accident that claimed her son’s life later wandered into a Stanleytown resident’s yard, but the householder denied ownership and promptly chased it out.
“The cow went home, and the lady at Stanleytown said the cow was not her own. She put it out of the yard,” Peters revealed.
She said more needs to be done to ensure that the roadways are safe for vehicle operators, as she calls on the police to play their part.
“I tell you; the animals are always on the road. On Stanleytown Road… Not Stanleyton Road alone, every time I come, especially on the West Coast side. When you come out of Georgetown, it is plenty of animals. Those animals just need to get off the road. They’re causing a lot of accidents. It really causes a lot of accidents. Most of the accidents that happen is the animals that are caused by animals. And the darkness of the road, too. Some parts of the place have light; some don’t have light. Stanleytown needs lights,” Peters said.
