As the own­er and op­er­a­tor of a ve­hi­cle on the na­tion’s road­way, there is a du­ty to main­tain the ve­hi­cle for per­son­al safe­ty but al­so for the safe­ty of oth­er road users. The pub­lic should not on­ly ap­pre­ci­ate this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty but al­so abide by their du­ty. In this con­text, it is un­der­stand­able that all ve­hi­cles util­is­ing the road­ways should be prop­er­ly in­spect­ed to en­sure that they are road­wor­thy. Af­ter all, it is a mat­ter of our safe­ty and the safe­ty of our loved ones.

By ap­pre­ci­at­ing the need to op­er­ate a ve­hi­cle which is prop­er­ly main­tained and road­wor­thy, we should now un­der­stand the need for harsh­er fines to en­sure that those among us who fal­ter in their du­ties will now feel more in­clined to care for their ve­hi­cles.

While ve­hi­cle own­ers and op­er­a­tors have a du­ty to­wards cur­ing de­fects in their ve­hi­cles, we are con­strained to con­sid­er the wor­thi­ness of the road­ways on which our ve­hi­cles must op­er­ate. Per­son­al­ly, I spend too much mon­ey and time to align and cam­ber my car. No, it is not be­cause I am a fe­male dri­ver and don’t know how to turn my steer­ing wheel (yes, I have heard one too many peo­ple joke about this). It is be­cause I play ee­nie, mee­nie, miney, moe every day when dri­ving to and from work. The pot­holes, sinks and bro­ken roads lit­ter the road­way I use each day; it is nev­er a mat­ter of evad­ing these for me, but, more a de­bate of which one I can gen­tly at­tempt to cross over. There are some pot­holes so deep that I am sure a stray pup­py can fall in and drown.

The con­di­tion of the road­ways is by no means a re­cent de­vel­op­ment; it is one that has plagued our coun­try for count­less years. Dur­ing the dry sea­son, it is ter­ri­ble hav­ing to nav­i­gate the roads, but dur­ing the wet sea­son and days with suf­fi­cient rain­fall, it is al­most im­pos­si­ble. My car has dropped in­to pot­holes deep enough that I have had to pray my car wasn’t se­ri­ous­ly dam­aged, and all be­cause the wa­ter on the road acts as a per­fect cam­ou­flage.

The con­di­tion of the road­ways begs the ques­tion, who is re­spon­si­ble for the de­fec­tive roads on which we tra­verse? Sec­tion 17 of the High­ways Act Chap­ter 48:01 makes it clear that the high­ways are to be main­tained at the pub­lic’s ex­pense. It means, there­fore, that the main­te­nance of a high­way is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble for pub­lic works. Now, not all road­ways fall un­der this act, as it on­ly per­tains to high­ways as de­fined in sec­tion 17. The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act, to be read in con­junc­tion with the High­ways Act, sets out the streets and traces that are the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties. There is al­so a pro­ce­dure by which new streets can be adopt­ed and main­tained by the rel­e­vant mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty. It stands to rea­son that our gov­ern­ment, whether it be cen­tral or lo­cal, has a du­ty to main­tain and up­keep the road­ways. The same road­ways on which we re­quire our road­wor­thy, de­fect-free ve­hi­cles.

It can be ar­gued that the fail­ure to main­tain the road­ways can be deemed neg­li­gent. If, in fact, the au­thor­i­ties are neg­li­gent in their du­ties, then what, if any­thing, is our re­course to this neg­li­gence? Well, it may be sim­ple enough. Just as a charge and/or fine can be lev­elled against a per­son op­er­at­ing a de­fec­tive ve­hi­cle, then a law­suit can be brought against the au­thor­i­ties for dam­age to ve­hi­cles due to the con­di­tions of our road­ways. Fur­ther, if per­son­al in­jury is sus­tained as a di­rect re­sult of the poor road­ways, then com­pen­sa­tion can be sought for those in­juries.

To the peo­ple who have had the ex­pe­ri­ence of drop­ping in­to pot­holes that have in­stant­ly caused dam­age, re­sult­ing in ve­hi­cles be­ing towed home and un­ex­pect­ed re­pairs be­com­ing nec­es­sary, per­haps it is time to doc­u­ment such oc­cur­rences. Record videos, take pho­tographs, and se­cure re­ceipts for parts and labour. Just as we must be held ac­count­able for the con­di­tion of our ve­hi­cles, maybe it is time the au­thor­i­ties be held ac­count­able for the con­di­tion of the road­way.

In con­sid­er­ing the road­wor­thi­ness of our ve­hi­cles, I al­so con­sid­ered the ve­hi­cles used by gov­ern­ment agen­cies and, in par­tic­u­lar, our po­lice ser­vice. Hav­ing ded­i­cat­ed sev­er­al years of my life in lo­cal gov­ern­ment, I am aware of tick­ets be­ing is­sued to peo­ple who op­er­at­ed gov­ern­ment ve­hi­cles for var­i­ous de­fects. Giv­en that my of­fice is lo­cat­ed with­in the prox­im­i­ty of a po­lice sta­tion and I fol­low po­lice ve­hi­cles with ex­ten­sive ex­haust fumes, bro­ken lights and oth­er such de­fects, I have to won­der who tick­ets the po­lice. Are the ve­hi­cles be­ing used by our po­lice of­fi­cers road­wor­thy?

As I in­di­cat­ed at the on­set, the road­wor­thi­ness of a ve­hi­cle is cru­cial to the safe­ty of peo­ple in the ve­hi­cle and those shar­ing the road­way. If in­creased fines and charges mo­ti­vate ve­hi­cle own­ers to en­sure the safe­ty of their ve­hi­cles, then I agree in­creased fines and charges may be a good op­tion. But, is it rea­son­able to ex­pect com­pli­ance from ve­hi­cle own­ers if the road­ways are not in good con­di­tion? I say good con­di­tion be­cause I do not be­lieve cit­i­zens are even ag­i­tat­ing at this point for new roads; all we seem to want is some­thing slight­ly bet­ter than what we have. Un­der­stand­ably, our cur­rent Gov­ern­ment is still a fair­ly new one and no one ex­pects mir­a­cles. But a du­ty has been placed on us; now, a du­ty should al­so be placed on the Gov­ern­ment to start fix­ing our roads.