“About six months ago I counted the lights on the highway that were missing or not working between Warrens and the airport and the total was around 150.
“Tonight I checked again. Between the airport and Wildey there are now 160. The overall total is in excess of 270.
“There are stretches between Lowlands and Newton and Graeme Hall that are in total darkness.
“In the interest of road safety, someone from . . . MTW should be held responsible.”
THE ABOVE EXTRACT is from a letter to the Editor received by this newspaper over the weekend. We consider it particularly important that we share it and express our absolute disgust with the situation, particularly since we are currently observing Road Safety Month.
What makes this situation particularly bothersome is that the problem is there for anyone who drives the highway at night to see – and has been so for well over three years. And it is getting worse by the day.
Just over a year ago, in the September 10, 2014 edition of the MIDWEEK NATION, we published a story written by our reporter Lisa King who at that time counted a total of 180 poles missing from the highway between Holborn on the Spring Garden Highway and the roundabout at the airport end of the ABC Highway.
In addition to the missing poles that would have carried either a single light, a pair of lights or four lights, depending on their location, there were at least 200 other lights that were missing or not working on poles that were still standing.
While we have not returned to count, we are 100 per cent sure the problem is worse today than it was in September 2014. That is absolutely at variance with the way we have traditionally managed our public services in Barbados.
We know that the installation and maintenance of lights along the ABC and Spring Garden Highways fall under the Government Electrical Engineering Department (GEED), which is a division of the Ministry of Transport and Works, and it is time for the minister responsible, Mr Michael Lashley, to step in.
It would be unreasonable of us to suggest that GEED has been negligent in these matters, especially since everyone knows that the current economic situation has starved just about every Government department of vital resources, but we cannot continue to expose countless Barbadians and visitors to this level of danger posed by long stretches of darkness as well as constantly moving from darkness to light, given the disorienting effect this has on motorists.
When we raised this issue late last year, Minister Lashley disclosed Government was working with the Inter-American Development Bank on a project to replace all streets lights on the island with the brighter, more energy-efficient LED type. A year has passed and therefore the minister should be in a better position now to say when this project will start.
In the meantime, the ministry should be able to tell the country how much money it has been able to collect from insurance companies to replace lamp posts cut down by motorists, given that each replacement costs in the region of $5 000.
Taxpayers should not be left to pick up the tab for 200-odd poles, plus their lights, when insurance companies collect healthy premiums that contribute to even more handsome profits.
We have a much more respectable history when it comes to the management of our public services, and this situation with very poor street lamps maintenance by the Government must not be allowed to become endemic. Let’s demonstrate, Mr Minister, that we are genuinely serious about road safety.
