For several hours per day highways in Trinidad become a car park, thousands of cars barely moving. I remember there was a time that I hated traffic. Not anymore. I have come to embrace traffic for one simple reason. On average my daily commute is FOUR hours. So I thought what can I do to stop alleviate the traffic. Not much. So I decided to just relax, because if I continued hating the traffic then I would be angry for at least four hours per day. That not making no sense. So woo saa. Although I may have come to terms with the fact that traffic has become a part of life I think that it may have debilitating effects on us as citizens that we may not immediately consider or take note of.
Traffic is physically unhealthy. Sitting in a vehicle for several hours per day could never be good for our health. I am no doctor but I know my body and I feel it, when I get out of the car all I want to do is spread out, get a good stretch. Additionally many of us leave home in the morning too early to have breakfast and then barely make it to work on time and rush to eat whatever we find and that may not be the best for our bodies. essentially don’t have a proper breakfast which is the most important meal of the day. Then there is the afternoon commute as many people are on the road until six or seven at night and would have eaten lunch sometime around midday, so we hungry so we have to indulge in the Highway Market.
Traffic could drive you to drink. How many times you get a call from a friend, “aye ah hear the traffic real bad let we go an lime nuh”. Several afternoons per week instead of going home we are in our favourite watering hole knocking back a few drinks. This may seem to be a fun going past time but it can quickly develop into a problem especially for those of us who have a history of alcoholism in our family. Not to mention the obvious fact which is the drinking is being done to kill time to drive home. Therefore drinking and driving, a deadly combination.
Traffic is not economical. Traffic encourages us to spend money that we did not intend to spend. How many people budget for their nuts, and drinks purchased on the highway on the day home. If this is a daily habit at a cost of ten dollars for the day for nuts and a beverage with an average of twenty working days for the month that is two hundred dollars. It may not seem like much until we look at the annual figure of two thousand four hundred dollars. Add to that the afternoons when we would go drinking and thanks to the budget that bill is even higher now. Then there are the phone calls that we make while driving. Many of us get on the phone to talk to friends and family as a distraction from the traffic. then at the end of the month your friendly mobile service provider buss your throat
Traffic has a negative impact on our social lives. Personally I am single partly because I spend four hours a day in traffic. Even if a see a cute guy driving alongside me I can’t flag him down because he probably vex he in traffic. Then when I reach home I too tired to go back out. On a more serious note though it limits the amount of time that families have to spend to spend together when they get home. When we get home it is a mad rush to do home work with children, feed pets, cook, put a load of clothes to wash, prepare for the next day. By the time we are finished doing that it is time to go to sleep. When are we supposed to relax? Probably while we are in the traffic!
While I think it is the responsibility of the government to provide proper infrastructure that would accommodate the amount of cars that they authorize to be on the roadway it is up to us as citizens both corporate and individuals to do our part to reduce the traffic. Look around at the cars in traffic new cars, old cars, luxury cars, economy cars, bling cars, vans trucks, big rims small rims and hub caps and most of them have ONE person in it. Today I did my part and carpooled with a friend. We Trinis too big for that because people will think you are a scrub if they see you in your friend’s car. More importantly how people will see the rims you pay twenty thousand dollars for if you leave you car at home.
Then there are the irresponsible corporate citizens who contribute to the traffic. Why should I be jostling a truck hauling a forty foot container on the road when I not wearing a costume and it not playing no music. Check how may of them are on the road in the morning or in the afternoon on the way home. Why don’t they haul those things in the night. Then the same container is going to stop on Frederick, Charlotte or Henry Streets to off load goods to create more traffic. Oh gosh better than that man. Then most companies in the Port of Spain area I am sure, and I could put my big head on a block for this, don’t need all their employees to be at their desk at eight o’clock. Flextime could be introduced so that all of us don’t have to make that mad rush to work for the same time then to all have to leave at the same time. There could also be decentralization of services both in the public service and in the private sector. How many companies really need to have an office in Port of Spain? Look through the telephone directory, how many companies are not providing a service that requires them to be in Port of Spain. I am no Real Estate agent but I am sure that companies could save a lot of money by moving out of the city.
I want to reiterate that traffic is our problem, created in part by us. Like many other things in society if we wait on the Government to fix it nothing will happen. I must credit the government though because attempts to fix the traffic problem have been made, widening the highways the over pass/interchange to south. However it just seems as though the number of cars on the road is increasing faster than the road expansion project. Hence the reason it is up to us to make the difference.
What have been the effects of traffic on your life? What are the ways in which you as an individual can help to reduce the traffic one step at a time? What has your employer done to deal with the traffic woes of employees?
Traffic is physically unhealthy. Sitting in a vehicle for several hours per day could never be good for our health. I am no doctor but I know my body and I feel it, when I get out of the car all I want to do is spread out, get a good stretch. Additionally many of us leave home in the morning too early to have breakfast and then barely make it to work on time and rush to eat whatever we find and that may not be the best for our bodies. essentially don’t have a proper breakfast which is the most important meal of the day. Then there is the afternoon commute as many people are on the road until six or seven at night and would have eaten lunch sometime around midday, so we hungry so we have to indulge in the Highway Market.
Traffic could drive you to drink. How many times you get a call from a friend, “aye ah hear the traffic real bad let we go an lime nuh”. Several afternoons per week instead of going home we are in our favourite watering hole knocking back a few drinks. This may seem to be a fun going past time but it can quickly develop into a problem especially for those of us who have a history of alcoholism in our family. Not to mention the obvious fact which is the drinking is being done to kill time to drive home. Therefore drinking and driving, a deadly combination.
Traffic is not economical. Traffic encourages us to spend money that we did not intend to spend. How many people budget for their nuts, and drinks purchased on the highway on the day home. If this is a daily habit at a cost of ten dollars for the day for nuts and a beverage with an average of twenty working days for the month that is two hundred dollars. It may not seem like much until we look at the annual figure of two thousand four hundred dollars. Add to that the afternoons when we would go drinking and thanks to the budget that bill is even higher now. Then there are the phone calls that we make while driving. Many of us get on the phone to talk to friends and family as a distraction from the traffic. then at the end of the month your friendly mobile service provider buss your throat
Traffic has a negative impact on our social lives. Personally I am single partly because I spend four hours a day in traffic. Even if a see a cute guy driving alongside me I can’t flag him down because he probably vex he in traffic. Then when I reach home I too tired to go back out. On a more serious note though it limits the amount of time that families have to spend to spend together when they get home. When we get home it is a mad rush to do home work with children, feed pets, cook, put a load of clothes to wash, prepare for the next day. By the time we are finished doing that it is time to go to sleep. When are we supposed to relax? Probably while we are in the traffic!
While I think it is the responsibility of the government to provide proper infrastructure that would accommodate the amount of cars that they authorize to be on the roadway it is up to us as citizens both corporate and individuals to do our part to reduce the traffic. Look around at the cars in traffic new cars, old cars, luxury cars, economy cars, bling cars, vans trucks, big rims small rims and hub caps and most of them have ONE person in it. Today I did my part and carpooled with a friend. We Trinis too big for that because people will think you are a scrub if they see you in your friend’s car. More importantly how people will see the rims you pay twenty thousand dollars for if you leave you car at home.
Then there are the irresponsible corporate citizens who contribute to the traffic. Why should I be jostling a truck hauling a forty foot container on the road when I not wearing a costume and it not playing no music. Check how may of them are on the road in the morning or in the afternoon on the way home. Why don’t they haul those things in the night. Then the same container is going to stop on Frederick, Charlotte or Henry Streets to off load goods to create more traffic. Oh gosh better than that man. Then most companies in the Port of Spain area I am sure, and I could put my big head on a block for this, don’t need all their employees to be at their desk at eight o’clock. Flextime could be introduced so that all of us don’t have to make that mad rush to work for the same time then to all have to leave at the same time. There could also be decentralization of services both in the public service and in the private sector. How many companies really need to have an office in Port of Spain? Look through the telephone directory, how many companies are not providing a service that requires them to be in Port of Spain. I am no Real Estate agent but I am sure that companies could save a lot of money by moving out of the city.
I want to reiterate that traffic is our problem, created in part by us. Like many other things in society if we wait on the Government to fix it nothing will happen. I must credit the government though because attempts to fix the traffic problem have been made, widening the highways the over pass/interchange to south. However it just seems as though the number of cars on the road is increasing faster than the road expansion project. Hence the reason it is up to us to make the difference.
What have been the effects of traffic on your life? What are the ways in which you as an individual can help to reduce the traffic one step at a time? What has your employer done to deal with the traffic woes of employees?
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