This week on Anguilla has been scary.

People in cars have frightened me.

What on earth is Penny going on about I hear you saying. People in cars are not frightening. Has she finally gone batty?

Smahed cars

Well reader, I will tell you some of what I have seen and you can make your own minds up whether or not I am right to feel as I do.

On our way to the Race Against Aids Reception at the Governor’s Residence, reported in this newspaper last week, my husband and I were delayed by a car crash on the road from Little Dix towards Shoal Bay. The smaller vehicle was crushed, both along one side and also head on. It was lying across the path of the oncoming vehicle, the two forming a T shape on the left hand side of the carriageway. Broken glass glinted in the twilight. The police directed the traffic and many bystanders looked on. I am not going to speculate on the cause of the crash or who was to blame. It was an ugly scene and I can only hope that all parties to the collision were unhurt. When we returned home along the same road hours later, both cars were gone but the glass remained, winking evilly in our car’s headlights.

Smahed car

Later in the week I was twice held up by cars shunting each other as they reached the new traffic lights at the top of George Hill. In each case the same scenario was apparent. The first car had slowed down, the second car driver had not reacted swiftly enough and had hit the first car and then the third car had been driven into the second car, thus effectively making it the filling in a pile-up sandwich.

The build up of traffic after all of these accidents was fast, with maximum disruption caused to other road users. The police did well coping with this mayhem.
Later still in the week I saw a four by four with the person in the front passenger seat holding a small child on her lap. None in the car appeared to be wearing a seat belt. I am not a person to preach but I do wonder if some people on this island really care for their children. When I was small, no more than two years old, my father braked suddenly. I was unsecured on the back seat. When he braked I flew forward through the front windscreen of the car. I still bear the scars today. In the 1960’s, an age when rear seatbelts and child seats were not even a glimmer of imagination in a car designer’s eye, it is easy to see how such an accident could happen. In the twenty first century when cars are fitted with seat belts for all seats and child seats are mandatory in many countries of the world and are certainly easy to buy online, it is difficult to understand why there are people driving around on Anguilla with children sitting precariously on laps in the front of cars. Is there so little care for their young one’s safety? What would happen if the driver had an accident? At the very least the child would be crushed by the weight of the adult being flung forward by the impact. Then of course there is the air bag that many newer cars are fitted with nowadays. This is designed to deploy in a split second to cushion people as they are flung forward on impact. So the child in these cars will be caught twice, sandwiched between the adult and the air bag. Splat!

Towards the end of the week I saw something that I have seen before and often, but this particular time it really struck me that here was an accident waiting to happen. I was approaching the roundabout in The Valley at the end of Queen Elizabeth Avenue, when a young girl drove on to it. She was driving a white rental car and had a large red Learner plate prominently displayed. Beside her sat an older gentleman, who was obviously teaching her to drive. It was not quite eight o’clock in the morning and there was a lot of traffic on the move with people going to work, dropping children to school and such like. Although there were indicators on the car she was not being taught to use them. Instead, she was being instructed to shove her hand out of the window and indicate her intention to drive around the entire roundabout by waving her hand over the roof of the car. She drove around the circle one handed with her other hand extended through the window. I wonder where in the Highway Code it says to do this. Copies are available in some supermarkets, but I have been unable to find mention of this practice of abandoning perfectly good light signals in favour of what I can only describe as a misleading and dangerous hand signal. How is this young lady, and for that matter all other drivers who use this signal, supposed to react if, for example, her tyre blows out while she is making her signal? She has to respond with one hand as it will take a second or two to bring the other hand down to assist in holding the car steady. This is enough time for her to collide with something or, worse, someone.

I hope dear reader, that you can now understand why I am frightened when I drive on Anguilla’s roads. People are driving without due care and attention, using their children as safety cushions and are using unorthodox and dangerous hand signals, which they are teaching the next generation of drivers. Smashed cars are all over the island as you can see from my snaps. If my week is a representative sample of what is happening on the island’s roads, I hope you can see why I am scared to be on them.

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