An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The deaths of two mo­tor­cy­clists in a fa­tal col­li­sion along the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way have pushed the num­ber of mo­tor­cy­cle crash­es in Trinidad and To­ba­go to nine for 2026, a 28 per cent in­crease over the same pe­ri­od last year, prompt­ing re­newed calls for mo­torists to ex­er­cise cau­tion and obey traf­fic laws.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), road safe­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion Ar­rive Alive and Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our have all ap­pealed to mo­torists to recog­nise the se­ri­ous and of­ten trag­ic con­se­quences of road traf­fic crash­es.

The warn­ings fol­low Thurs­day’s fa­tal ac­ci­dent along the south­bound lane of the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way near Brent­wood Mall, Ch­agua­nas, in which mo­tor­cy­clists Nicholas Ban­doo and Levi Joseph lost their lives.

Joseph, 25, of Cane Farm, Trinci­ty, died at the scene, while Ban­doo, 31, of San­ta Rosa, Ari­ma, suc­cumbed to his in­juries while be­ing treat­ed at the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty.

Po­lice re­ports in­di­cate that po­lice of­fi­cers on sta­t­ic pa­trol du­ty ob­served the in­ci­dent as it un­fold­ed.

The po­lice said one mo­tor­cy­clist col­lid­ed with the rear of a white Toy­ota Axio, trig­ger­ing a sec­ondary col­li­sion in­volv­ing the sec­ond mo­tor­cy­clist.

The white Toy­ota Axio, dri­ven by a woman from Eden Gar­dens, Freeport, re­port­ed­ly burst in­to flames up­on im­pact. The dri­ver man­aged to get out and re­move her two young chil­dren from the burn­ing wreck, and all three were lat­er treat­ed for mi­nor in­juries at hos­pi­tal.

Sad­dened by the in­ci­dent, the TTPS urged all mo­torists to op­er­ate their ve­hi­cles safe­ly and re­spon­si­bly.
The Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch Road­way Sur­veil­lance Unit (RSU) con­firmed that nine mo­tor­cy­clists had been killed in road traf­fic col­li­sions so far in 2026, com­pared with sev­en over the same pe­ri­od last year, rep­re­sent­ing a 28 per cent in­crease.

The fig­ure brings the num­ber of mo­tor­cy­clists killed in crash­es over the past five years to 40.

The TTPS al­so ad­dressed neg­a­tive pub­lic com­men­tary on so­cial me­dia about the traf­fic grid­lock caused by the ac­ci­dent, ex­plain­ing that le­gal in­ves­tiga­tive pro­ce­dures must be fol­lowed af­ter road traf­fic in­ci­dents.

“Pa­tience is im­por­tant, with pri­or­i­ty al­ways be­ing giv­en to the care of vic­tims and safe­ty of first re­spon­ders,” it said.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Eli Za­k­our al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of the two mo­tor­cy­clists.
He urged mo­torists to obey traf­fic laws and recog­nise that their ac­tions can have life-al­ter­ing con­se­quences.

“While Trinidad and To­ba­go has record­ed en­cour­ag­ing re­duc­tions in road traf­fic ac­ci­dents and fa­tal­i­ties, the loss of even one life is one too many,” Za­k­our said.

“The min­istry re­mains com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing road safe­ty through pub­lic aware­ness, en­force­ment and con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion with all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers. Road safe­ty is a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Ar­rive Alive: Please

slow down

Ar­rive Alive Sharon In­gle­field pres­i­dent al­so ap­pealed to mo­tor­cy­cle own­ers to recog­nise the dan­gers of speed­ing, warn­ing, “Speed on a bike doesn’t give you a sec­ond chance.”

She added, “On a mo­tor­cy­cle, you have no seat­belt. No airbag. No ve­hi­cle, met­al, around you. A crash hits bik­ers hard. You have less time to re­act. Less time to re­act, and more dis­tance to stop.”

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies of both men, she said, “Road crash­es are pre­ventable. Please, let’s all slow down to ar­rive alive.”

Vic­tim’s girl­friend shares emo­tion­al trib­ute

Mean­while, De­vi Daniel, the girl­friend of Nicholas Ban­doo, took to Face­book yes­ter­day to ex­press her pain and grief fol­low­ing his death.

It was be­lieved that Ban­doo had been cel­e­brat­ing his birth­day on Thurs­day with Joseph and oth­er friends

In an emo­tion­al trib­ute, Daniel wrote, “I don’t think I’ll ever have the words to de­scribe what los­ing you feels like...You were the most lov­ing, goofi­est soul, al­ways pre­tend­ing to be this big bad bul­ly when, in re­al­i­ty, you were the biggest ba­by. You matched my crazi­ness in ways no­body else ever could, and to­geth­er we made the most ran­dom, un­for­get­table mem­o­ries. I’ll miss your tight hugs, end­less kiss­es, painful bites, your laugh and all the things that made you so un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly you.”

The fam­i­lies of both vic­tims yes­ter­day de­clined to speak.
Ban­doo’s fam­i­ly re­quest­ed pri­va­cy, while Joseph’s rel­a­tives waved away re­porters from their home.