FROM PEDAL POWER TO HORSEPOWER

January 31, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source

There used to be a time when the police would carry out campaigns against unlighted bicycles. In most of these campaigns, the police never bothered to charge anyone.

They would simply stop the cyclist on the road and deflate his wheels by removing the valve stem. This saved them a great deal of paperwork and worry instead of having to haul the cyclist down to the station and have that person charged.

For the cyclist the removal of the valve stem was not just an inconvenience. It was a real problem. For one, without the valve stem you could not even if you could find a bicycle pump, inflate the wheel.

It meant that you had to walk with your bicycle all the way home and since in those days public transportation was hard to come by and since most persons– especially those in the countryside– used their bicycles to commute long distances, being stopped and having your valve stem removed meant that you had to walk, with bicycle in tow, for a long distance to get home.

You were not going to find any bicycle shop open at that hour of the night. And if you did, you were not likely to get a valve stem that easily because in those days even an item like a valve stem was a victim of the foreign exchange item.

Despite this, no cyclist bothered to question the legality of the actions of the police in removing valve stems from your bicycle. There certainly was no basis in law for the police to do this. Yet no one complained.

This was no doubt out of fear of the Guyana Police Force. This was how authoritarian was the society. People feared the police whose political masters allowed them to act with impunity. Many people seem today to forget that the laws which now allow the police to search your property for guns and ammunition without warrant; were not instituted because of an increase in gun crimes but as a tool of political repression.

These laws allowed the police to terrorize the political opponents of the then ruling party as the WPA members in APNU can ably testify.

Today, the police do not have to bother as much with bicycles. This is fast becoming in urban areas an extinct species and in many rural areas it is often dangerous to ride your bicycles at night regardless of whether it has lights or no lights.

There is little regard that is shown these days for pedal cyclists. Often they are squeezed onto the curb by the heavy vehicular traffic. Motorists seem oblivious to cyclists many of whom, ride at great risk these days.

This is all part of the trend of indiscipline on our roadways. And the police need to do something to stem this indiscipline without having to haul persons before the courts.

No motorist is going to allow any policeman to deflate the wheels for breach of a traffic offence these days. And no policeman is going to want to do this when he or she can exercise the more favoured option of hauling you to the station and placing you before the courts.

The police, however, can do much more to improve discipline on our roadways without having to throw the book at the erring motorists. The police can give warnings to motorists and they would be surprised at how effective this can be.

Take, for example, a practice that is very prevalent today and which aggravates most law-abiding motorists.

There are two lanes leading to a junction; one lane is for proceeding straight and the other lane, the turning lane, is for vehicles that are turning.

The lane for traffic not changing direction is usually the longer lane and there is usually a long line of vehicles in this lane. But quite consistently there are motorists who will go alongside this lane into the turning lane and proceed to the head and then simply proceed straight, all the while impeding motorists who wish to turn and are in their correct lane.

All it will take is for a few policemen to be placed during peak hours at junctions where there are two lanes directing traffic in different directions. The police should simply pull over those who have flouted the law by being in the wrong lane.

They should issue a stern warning to these drivers but should desist from trying to deflate their wheels because in this the age of horsepower that unlawful practice would not be condoned.