Garth Rattray MR. WITCLIFFE 'Steelie' Johnson has been charged with manslaughter in the death of little 12-year-old Merle Grove High School student Shakara Harris. It is alleged that he was driving his Sports Utility Vehicle when it struck Shakara just outside her school gate at 6:05 a.m. last week Friday (Sunrise in Kingston is 6:41 a.m. this time of year). Soon after the incident the blame game began in earnest as various groups pointed fingers at one another for having no proper safety or crossing arrangements for the children attending this high school that abuts the dangerous five-lane Constant Spring Road.
National Works Agency (NWA) communications manager Mr. Vando Palmer was clearly miffed at the various people who lambasted his organisation for not seeing to the safety of the school children. He in turn blamed the school board for not following his instruction that the children be made to cross at the nearby traffic lights. He said that the NWA had duly informed the board that the changes to Constant Spring Road had made it impossible for any pedestrian crossing to be placed at that section of the roadway again. Mr. Palmer further strengthened his case when he said that he had witnessed the Crossing Guard assigned to the high school wrongly crossing children in front of the school and even being ignored by drivers using the five-lane roadway.
NO SAFE ZONE
Now, after the fact as usual, there are suggestions of everything from lower speed limits for school zones to flashing lights and protective railings/barriers to keep the children safe. The idea of a pedestrian bridge was once considered but dismissed because the engineering requirements of such a structure were not supported by the physical outlay of those environs. So, in order to get from Merle Grove to the other side of the road, children had to walk to the traffic lights, use the signal (there were no zebra lines) to cross Dunrobin Avenue, then cross from one side of Constant Spring Road to the next.
I checked out the schools in the Constant Spring/Dunrobin area. I could not find a school warning sign when approaching Merle Grove High School from the east. All other schools in the Constant Spring/Dunrobin area have warning signs but the Queen's Preparatory School and Immaculate Conception High School crossings have only one yellow orb each (instead of the mandatory two). They also have fading zebra lines in the roadway. The Dunrobin Preparatory School has one yellow orb while the Dunrobin Primary School has none. Both have significantly faded zebra lines.
WHO IS TO BLAME?
At the centre of all of this mess lies the cold body of little Shakara. Her mother, Althea Harris, grieves inconsolably, a school community has been traumatised and a nation left sad and mourning the tragic loss of yet another child. So who is to blame? Who killed Shakara Harris? Was it the SUV driver Mr. Johnson? Was it the NWA? Was it the school board? Or was it you and I with our need for wider roads to accommodate our vehicles, our double standards, and our pernicious and systemic governmental inefficiencies?
EQUAL TREATMENT FOR ALL
If the 12-year-old children of government officials or other 'important people' had to take the bus in the mornings and somehow get across that dangerous, wide and dark road alone to get to school, I suggest that there would be adequate warning signs and safety structures in place. Unless and until we confer that same degree of care and caution on all the children, we will continue to pass the buck, blame each other and watch as innocent lives are snuffed out one by one. Every single life is precious.
Now, again after the fact as usual, we hear the following statement, "Whatever additional signs are necessary we will be putting them in place," too late for Shakara. I guarantee that it will also be too late for other children in other parts of the island. Other accidents are waiting to happen because of a lack of proper school zone warning signs, brightly marked and posted pedestrian crossings and a lack of safety procedures in place to protect the little ones.
Dr. Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice.
