Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

“Please act now!”

That was the plea yes­ter­day from crossover crash sur­vivor Yousuf Ho­sein, fol­low­ing the death of 42-year-old Keron Ap­ple­whaite in a sim­i­lar ac­ci­dent on Wednes­day night.

Po­lice said Ap­ple­whaite, of Mara­bel­la, was dri­ving his sil­ver AD wag­on north along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way near Tarou­ba around 11.45 pm when a grey Kia Soren­to, dri­ven by a 35-year-old Palmiste man head­ing south, lost con­trol, veered across the me­di­an and slammed in­to his ve­hi­cle.

Ap­ple­whaite’s car was thrown in­to near­by bush­es. He died at the scene. The Soren­to dri­ver suf­fered in­juries and was treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Po­lice Sta­tion and High­way Pa­trol, along with Mon Re­pos fire­fight­ers, re­spond­ed.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ap­ple­whaite’s home yes­ter­day, the prop­er­ty was locked, and rel­a­tives did not come out­side.

Ho­sein, who sur­vived a 2012 crossover crash when a two-tonne truck land­ed on his car near Gas­par­il­lo, has been lob­by­ing for the in­stal­la­tion of ca­ble bar­ri­ers and guard rails on the na­tion’s high­ways.

“I am call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter and her Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Jear­lean John to please con­tin­ue the ca­ble bar­ri­ers/guard rails to pre­vent crossover ac­ci­dents, and in so do­ing, pre­vent the loss of limb and life of cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Ho­sein ac­knowl­edged that some bar­ri­ers were in­stalled un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion but warned the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment against de­lays.

“I don’t want the present Gov­ern­ment to be pussy-foot­ing in in­stalling guard rails or ca­ble bar­ri­ers on the na­tion’s high­ways,” he said.

For­mer Works and Trans­port min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan had in­di­cat­ed in Feb­ru­ary last year that met­al guardrails pro­vide bet­ter crash pro­tec­tion, low­er life-cy­cle costs and are eas­i­er to re­pair. He said the min­istry planned a three-year me­di­an bar­ri­er pro­gramme. In Au­gust, he an­nounced that three con­tracts were award­ed for the re­moval and re­place­ment of ca­ble bar­ri­ers along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Min­is­ter John via What­sApp for com­ment. She ac­knowl­edged the mes­sage but had not re­spond­ed up to press time.