THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE ONLY criticism I would like to offer to the wonderful Air Jamaica Jazz Festival was the traffic situation at the event. Obviously, with so many people attending, traffic jams were inevitable, and parking was quite well organised. What I refer to is no criticism of the organisation of the event, but the incredible behaviour by hundreds of drivers travelling to and from the event.
On Saturday evening, the road between Montego Bay and Rose Hall was at times converted into what seemed a three or four-lane one-way autobahn. We were quite incredulous to see that cars were passing us to our left on the curb, while on the right throngs of cars (and trucks!) were travelling at high speeds. Even further to the right people were driving through bush and under trees forming the fourth lane. Anyone unfortunate enough to travel towards Montego Bay at that time had to fear for their lives and make way for these people.
Fortunately, the police stopped some of these drivers, unfortunately the numbers were so overwhelming that the police could not cope.
To these drivers, who seem to lack the responsibility to drive a motor vehicle, consider this:
Through your behaviour, you are not speeding up anything, you are creating more pile-up than before. True you have jumped the line and moved ahead. But others just like you did so before and contributed to the chaos you now feel you need to pass. Stay in the lane and we will all travel faster (and safer).
When passing a line of standing traffic, you are not "overtaking" anybody, because we are not moving either. Guess what, we would all travel faster if possible, but we are standing in a long line. So what you are doing is like passing everybody in a line at the bank or post office. You would not do it there, so don't do it in traffic. Get civil and behave like decent members of society.
Other than this, the Jazz Festival was a hit!
I am, etc.,
VOLKER LAUTERBACH
volkerlauterbach@yahoo.com
Kingston 6
Via Go-Jamaica
