Dear Editor,
On page 7 of The Daily Herald of Tuesday September 10, 2019, I read “‘Chacho’ working on initiative to amend country’s traffic laws”. I said to myself, at last. But when I read further it concerned the sobriety testing, which indeed should have been in use by the police a long time ago. I hope that this initiative law will be met with and dealt with the necessary maturity and not brushed aside like the, according to my recollection, one and only initiative plastic bags law.
Along with that I would have loved to read that in cooperation with the traffic department and VROMI,, places for bus stops along the roads will be stipulated, and indicated by the official yellow bus stop sign. By the way I have been mentioning this long before “Chacho” got into politics.
Over and over I have been calling people’s (in government) attention to the fact that official bus stops are not indicated by inlets along the roads or by bus stop huts. Bus stops are indicated by the yellow traffic sign with the Dutch word BUSHALTE. If the bus stops are indicated, other drivers would expect buses to stop at the bus stops and not as is the case now, not being sure or knowing if the bus is going to stop every ten meters or whenever and wherever a passenger ask them to stop.
Right now anybody, including visitors to the island, are not sure where to go to catch a bus, because of the very erratic and irresponsible way in which bus drivers , and for that matter gypsies also, on the island go about picking up passengers. Sadly to say, and literally nothing is being done about it. This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons, if not the main reason why more and more the traffic is backed up.
Every time I’m on the road and I see this erratic behavior of irresponsible drivers, it reminds me of my first mentor who at that time pressed upon me something that I had heard when leaving the police academy, that if the police remain consistent in the execution of their duty, the police just like the Customs, the tax department, the telephone company, the utility companies, would also be a department of government which would largely contribute in paying their own salary.
While I’m at it, I believe that the school buses also can ask the schoolchildren (in same school uniform) if they can come together in one spot and not 30 meters further on the same road. That, to me, would be contributing to the building a sense of order of the child.
If memory serves me well, as long as I have been here, politicians felt intimidated to talk to a subject, both in the Island Council and Parliament. It was pleasing to me to read that the MP expressed her sense of courage. It sounded like coming from a man after my own heart. It reminded me of what my father told me when I first started to work. He said to me, “If you are not man enough to represent what that uniform stands for take it off.” I did not take it off.
I hope that the rest of the Members of Parliament will follow suit, which should assure us of the sense of independence and gumption of each member.
Russell A. Simmons
