An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Three men were killed in road ac­ci­dents be­tween Fri­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing.

In the first in­ci­dent around 7.45 pm on June 14, Adol­phus Mar­tinez, 58, of Park Av­enue, Road 1, North­east­ern Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande, was struck by a car as he was walk­ing along the road.

Re­ports stat­ed Mar­tinez was hit by a 42-year-old dri­ver of North­east­ern Set­tle­ment, San­gre Grande, along Ojoe Road.

Mar­tinez was pro­nounced dead at the scene, and his body was re­moved to the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal Mor­tu­ary, while the dri­ver’s ve­hi­cle was tak­en to the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion.

In a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent, two men lost their lives around 6.45 am yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a crash in the vicin­i­ty of Ja­cob Hill, Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way.

Al­lan Steele, 46, of Exo­ria Cir­cu­lar, Ja­cob Hill, re­port­ed­ly died at the scene, while a sec­ond man who was uniden­ti­fied up to yes­ter­day died at the hos­pi­tal.

A third man, iden­ti­fied as Chester Abra­ham, 60, of Ja­cob Hill, Waller­field, was in­jured and hos­pi­talised in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­port, the dri­ver of the black Suzu­ki lost con­trol and veered off the road, slam­ming in­to a tree. Steele re­port­ed­ly died at the scene, while Abra­ham and the uniden­ti­fied man were both tak­en for med­ical care. A fe­male rel­a­tive de­scribed Steele as “a good boy who had his ways.”

De­scrib­ing Steele as a giv­ing per­son, she said she last saw him on Fri­day night when he gave her mon­ey to play a mark for him.

She said Steele, the fa­ther of a 15-year-old girl, was due to cel­e­brate his birth­day on Wednes­day, and had been look­ing for­ward to the oc­ca­sion.

Yes­ter­day, she said the fam­i­ly was con­fused about the in­ci­dent. They be­lieved he had fall­en asleep in the ve­hi­cle and missed his usu­al stop. To mo­torists, she begged, “Just don’t drink and dri­ve.”

Mean­while, Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Brent Bat­son, ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies.

He re­mind­ed “road users that un­safe, ir­re­spon­si­ble dri­ving quick­ly re­sults in trag­ic con­se­quences rang­ing from se­ri­ous dis­abling in­juries to loss of life.

“Dri­vers know that ex­ceed­ing speed lim­its can quick­ly lead to loss of ve­hi­cle con­trol sit­u­a­tions and that seat-belt use, to­geth­er with dis­ci­plined and re­spon­si­ble dri­ving, is crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing safe jour­neys on the road­ways.”

The road fa­tal­i­ty fig­ure for 2024 now stands at 52, com­pared to 49 for the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year.