Bush fire causes East Bank traffic pile up
Truck, 12 buses, 4X4 in chain reaction crash
By Nigel Williams
Stabroek News
April 1, 2003
A bushfire along the East Bank Demerara highway caused a column of minibuses heading for the city to slam into each other yesterday morning, resulting in several injuries and later an assault on the man whose vehicle supposedly started crash.
Twelve minibuses, a 4x4 pick-up, a Barama Company vehicle and a seven-tonne lumber truck were involved in the smash-up which occurred at about 6:35 am on the Land of Canaan, Public Road.
Shortly after the crash, commuters jumped out of the minibuses and attacked the driver of the seven tonne-truck. Stabroek News was told that the driver, Osha Layne was on his way to Georgetown when he lost control of the truck and slammed into the back of the pick up, GFF 9187, which is owned by J Persaud. The 4x4 was thrown off the road, but the truck continued to roll, slamming into the back of minibus BGG 308 which slammed into the vehicle in front causing the chain reaction.
Passengers who were hurt took matters into their own hands, dragging Layne out of the truck and dealing him a severe thrashing, before he was wrestled from their hands and taken to the Georgetown Hospital for treatment.
When Stabroek News arrived on the scene, traffic cops had already commenced their investigations. Some of the drivers were still on the road with the badly damaged vehicles parked on the shoulder.
Speaking to this newspaper, one of the drivers said it had become a routine for them to manoeuvre carefully through thick smoke that would emanate from the bushes as a result of the fires.
“Look is every morning we have to face this problem, when we start to work the place would full ah smoke, so sometimes we would park the bus and wait until the place get a bit clear, or sometime we would drive slow.”
Yesterday morning the minibus drivers were proceeding slowly, but 70 metres away from where minibus number 12 was, there had been another accident, which caused an extended traffic jam.
“So while we had this traffic jam, we were driving very slowly, but all of a sudden I here blam! blam! blam! and before I could look out I feel something crashed into the back of my minibus,” the driver related.
He said he could not have done anything at that time and as such he too slammed into the rear of another minibus sending it into the rear of another and another until the last minibus, BHH 4609 of Linden was hit.
Other drivers related the same story saying that, “when you think that your partner get hit, you get hit too.”
Contacted yesterday afternoon, an officer at the Timehri Meteorological office said that since last month the office had issued an advisory for drivers to be on the alert on the East Bank Highway in the morning due to the bushfire problem.
“We were aware of this, since it is not only (at) Land of Canaan that there are bushfires, but right through up to Timehri and even some places on the Linden Highway.”
According to the officer, the advisory had alerted drivers to expect reduced visibility on the road and reduce their speed. The officer said the bushfires were as a result of the prolonged dry weather.
Meanwhile, Calvin Famey one of the co-owners of the truck which is registered to Famous Trucking Services of Friendship, EBD said from all indications, Layne was not speeding as the drivers were claiming. He said he was deeply disturbed by the actions of those who assaulted Layne, noting that had it not been for his brother, Matthew, Layne might have suffered more at the hands of his attackers.
He said Layne was still badly beaten. Layne has been working with the company since it came into existence some ten years ago and had not been in an accident before. Famey said the truck was hired to transport lumber to an East Coast lumberyard. The lumber which was sealed with the Guyana Forestry Commission tag was picked up at Ituni.
Famey asserted, “If that truck was speeding as they claimed, with all those boards then that accident would have been more serious, I am convinced that Layne was just rolling, he knows about the bushfire problem and I can’t believe that he would have been speeding at the time.”
Famey said that from all indications, the accident would cost the company millions of dollars to repair all 12 minibuses and the 4x4 pick up.
When Stabroek News visited Madewini Outpost where all of the damaged vehicles were taken, some of the drivers were seen giving statements to the police.
A few of them who spoke to this newspaper said that they were very angry since the accident meant that they would lose at least five days of work. “This is what feed me, now my bus write off what I am going to do?” one driver asked.
Most of the minibuses are registered to Route 42 Georgetown/Timehri, while others were from Route 43 Linden/Georgetown.
Newly appointed Chief Traffic Officer, Michael Harlequin told Stabroek News that the accident was an unfortunate one, noting that, there is little they can do about the problem. He however, pointed out that the onus was upon the drivers to ensure that they were not driving at too fast a rate.He said in their next scheduled road safety talk on the television and radio, drivers would be alerted to the problem.
