Ali­cia Llanos

Judg­ing from the sever­i­ty of the dam­age to the truck, Min­is­ter of Works of Trans­port Colm Im­bert said the dri­ver of the truck was speed­ing when it crashed in­to the Bai­ley bridge at Ma­coya yes­ter­day morn­ing. He was speak­ing yes­ter­day at a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann's. Im­bert said he did not know the age, dri­ving abil­i­ty or what state the dri­ver was in, but the most log­i­cal ex­pla­na­tion for the ac­ci­dent was that there was reck­less dri­ving. Im­bert said the bridge was well lit, with flash­ing lights me­ters be­fore the bridge and with strate­gi­cal­ly placed warn­ing signs.

He said the ex­tent of dam­age done to both the bridge and truck could on­ly have re­sult­ed from speed­ing. Im­bert said the es­ti­mat­ed cost to re­pair it was ap­prox­i­mate­ly $500,000 and a crew worked yes­ter­day to en­sure it would be us­able by last night. He said the own­er of the truck would be held li­able for the cost of re­pairs. Im­bert said a new bridge was be­ing con­struct­ed in Ma­coya. He said it was be­ing built to all in­ter­na­tion­al spec­i­fi­ca­tions and had a pedes­tri­an walk­way. Im­bert said the bridge would be com­plet­ed by De­cem­ber 9 and was ex­pect­ed to be opened the next day. He said once it was opened the Bai­ley bridge would be re­moved.

To­co bridge

When asked about the To­co bridge that col­lapsed on Au­gust 23 af­ter a 50-tonne crane was cross­ing it, Im­bert said Gov­ern­ment was as­sess­ing the sit­u­a­tion. He said thus far mil­lions of dol­lars have been spent on re­pair­ing the old bridge and con­struct­ing a new one. He said the con­trac­tor was be­ing held li­able, as no per­mis­sion was giv­en for the crane to cross it. In re­la­tion to the Au­gust 2008 col­lapse of a Bai­ley bridge in Ca­roni that left one dead, Im­bert said he could not give any spe­cif­ic in­for­ma­tion on the ex­act cause of its col­lapse or how much the Gov­ern­ment had spent on in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Kirk Wait­he, of Ar­rive Alive, said the min­is­ter should look at the rea­sons as to why peo­ple, de­spite the con­tin­u­os road fa­tal­i­ties, con­tin­ue to dri­ve reck­less­ly. He be­lieved peo­ple con­tin­ued to dri­ve that way be­cause they were al­lowed too be­cause the po­lice have no con­trol. Wait­he said it was the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the min­is­ter to en­sure leg­is­la­tion was put in place to equip the po­lice with speedray guns and breathal­y­sers and pro­vide them with the in­fra­struc­ture. There­fore, he added, the min­is­ter was by virtue re­spon­si­ble for the road sit­u­a­tion. He said Ar­rive Alive sent its con­do­lences to fam­i­lies who lost their loved ones.