Road traffic accidents fell by 22 per cent in the first half of the year, though the number of crashes remained high, the Guyana Police Force’s Traffic Department said.
Traffic Chief Mahendra Singh told Ignite News that 674 accidents were recorded between January and June, compared with 883 during the corresponding period last year. He said the reduction spanned all categories, including fatal, serious, minor and damage-only collisions.
Despite the improvement, Singh warned that speeding remained a leading cause of crashes, along with driver inattentiveness and pedestrians crossing into the path of moving vehicles, an issue he said had increased.
“Speeding naturally, one of the things that contribute the most to accidents, inattentiveness that’s on the part of the driver, pedestrians taking the opportunity to cross the path of a moving motor vehicle, we have seen an increase in that,” Singh said.
Drivers between the ages of 18 and 25 continued to account for the majority of cases, he added.
Asked whether the department had studied the economic and social impact of road fatalities, Singh said a dedicated unit within the Ministry of Home Affairs examined the broader consequences, including the financial toll on victims and their families and the wider cost to the country, such as lost productive labour and the burden on the healthcare system.
“I can tell you from maybe two years past at least 18 per cent of accidents total would have been placing a burden on the medical sector and resulted in extensive loss to an extent, in terms of economics, in terms of loss of income as a result of accidents, immobility and the severity of injuries,” he said.
Singh credited the Safe Country Initiative with strengthening the force’s investigative capacity, providing stronger evidence and reducing reliance on eyewitness accounts alone.
“Now we are having accessibility that is almost irrefutable, wherefore eyewitnesses is not the only thing we depend on, wherefore the only thing we depend on is not a story being told by a driver who might be alive and that pedestrian who is dead, who couldn’t represent himself or herself,” he said.
He said the department would continue its public education campaigns, aimed at reinforcing road safety as a shared responsibility among motorists, pedestrians and other road users.
