Inglefield worried about road fatalities and T&T’s mental psyche

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field is call­ing on the Min­istry of Health to pro­vide da­ta on the pos­si­ble link­ages be­tween road fa­tal­i­ties and the men­tal psy­che of the cit­i­zen­ry.

Search­ing for an­swers to ex­plain the con­tin­ued in­crease in road deaths, she sin­gled out the min­istry, claim­ing they had a du­ty to the pub­lic to delve deep in­to the cir­cum­stances lead­ing to each fa­tal­i­ty.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, she said, “We ap­peal to the Min­istry of Health for da­ta to sug­gest the rea­sons why a num­ber of pedes­tri­ans are los­ing their lives.”

She ques­tioned, “Is it a so­ci­etal prob­lem due to loss of faith and hope in what’s go­ing on in our coun­try? Is it home­less­ness? Is it im­pair­ment? What is the rea­son a pedes­tri­an will cross four to six lanes of traf­fic?”

In­sist­ing sta­tis­tics and in­tel­li­gence da­ta would be the dri­ving force be­hind shap­ing road safe­ty poli­cies, she ad­vo­cat­ed, “We need da­ta to sup­port some of the be­hav­iour we are see­ing still in 2026, on our na­tion’s roads. Road safe­ty, like every­thing else, should be da­ta-dri­ven to make in­tel­li­gent pro­nounce­ments.”

Al­so sin­gling out the High­way and Traf­fic Branch Unit of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), In­gle­field said, “We ap­peal to the High­way and Traf­fic Branch of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to be on our roads more con­sis­tent­ly with breathal­yser units, as well as speed guns, es­pe­cial­ly on the week­ends and dur­ing the evenings and ear­ly hours of the morn­ing when most of these col­li­sions oc­cur.”

The Ar­rive Alive head al­so placed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the shoul­ders of pedes­tri­ans to re­frain from cross­ing the high­ways.

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies who lost loved ones in fa­tal ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents over the week­end and yes­ter­day, she urged both mo­torists and pedes­tri­ans to ex­er­cise greater vig­i­lance when tra­vers­ing the na­tion’s roads.

Yes­ter­day’s fa­tal road ac­ci­dent along the west-bound lane of the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way in El So­cor­ro led to hours of snarled traf­fic af­ter a woman was struck as she at­tempt­ed to cross the road.

The uniden­ti­fied woman died at the scene.

This fa­tal ac­ci­dent oc­curred 24 hours af­ter one man died and two oth­ers were in­jured in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent in Ca­roni.

Re­ports in­di­cate yes­ter­day’s ac­ci­dent oc­curred around 5.25 am in the vicin­i­ty of the So­lo Fac­to­ry in El So­cor­ro.

Po­lice de­scribed the vic­tim, who was of African de­scent, as slim build and brown in com­plex­ion.

The vic­tim had been dressed in tiger-pat­terned trousers and a red jer­sey.

The dri­ver of the car that struck the woman was said to be as­sist­ing with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

In an up­date re­lat­ing to the fa­tal road ac­ci­dent in Ca­roni on Sun­day, of­fi­cials said they have yet to iden­ti­fy the man who lost his life dur­ing that in­ci­dent.

The ac­ci­dent in the vicin­i­ty of the Ca­roni Fly­over around 6 am on Sun­day, oc­curred along the north-bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, as four oc­cu­pants were re­turn­ing home from a night out.

It is yet to be de­ter­mined what caused the dri­ver to veer off the road, be­fore he col­lid­ed with a lamp-post, the im­pact of which re­port­ed­ly caused the black Hyundai Elantra to split in two.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the road fa­tal­i­ties are on­go­ing.