Clutching photographs of children and other loved ones killed on the roadways, members of Mothers in Black yesterday picketed near Ocean View International Hotel at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, where three youths perished in a horrific crash last September.
The picket exercise is among Road Safety Week activities that the group is staging to push officials to impose harsher penalties on reckless drivers, who continue to wreak havoc on the roadways.
It was on September 29 last at Lusignan that a minibus slammed into two other vehicles, killing Keisha Crawford, 21, Latoya Daniels, 13, and Quincy Junor, 17.
Daniels' mother, Daphne Luke, wept as she held a picture of the former Toyota High School student.
“It was hard for me to come to this spot,” said Luke, one of the newest members of Mothers in Black.
“It is the first time that I have come here (since the accident). “My child was only 13. She did not even get to celebrate her fourteenth birthday.”
Ms. Luke lives at Plaisance, and says she has to pass the crash site and the cemetery where Latoya is buried every day when she travels to the city with her two other children.
She is so fearful of her other two children sharing the same fate that she monitors them closely to ensure that they only travel “in buses that don't speed.”
Founder/Director of Mothers in Black, Denise Dias also expressed frustration at the continued spate of road deaths.
“It is the starting of Road Safety Week and three people have been killed,” she said.
“We are just totally fed up and frustrated.”
Mrs. Dias said that even as the group was engaged in their picketing exercise, several minibuses and other vehicles sped past them on the Rupert Craig Highway .
She also chided Traffic ranks for not focusing enough on speeding drivers.
“It's only in Road Safety Week that you would see them (the ranks). They were out for a whole week (after the Lusignan crash) but it's nothing consistent.”
However, she lauded Traffic Chief Roland Alleyne for supporting Mothers In Black and attempting to have more stringent traffic laws enacted.
“He's trying his best. He's changed the whole format of Road Safety Week…he has my support. He's willing to listen to our concerns, and he's fighting to push forward for new legislation along with us.”
Mrs. Dias, Traffic Chief Alleyne and other road safety stakeholders are scheduled to participate in a special radio programme this week.
Mothers in Black will picket near the Ocean View International until the end of November. On Friday, the group will take their protest to Parliament Buildings.
Mrs. Dias hopes that the group will get a chance to meet with government and other officials during that exercise.
“I am sending out an open invitation to the Home Affairs Minister, the Traffic Chief, Minister of Education, Minister of Social Services and Minister of Health to come and hear some of the stories… and Friday to hear some of the stories (of grieving families) and to stand with us.”