The Vincentian society is in a state not far from lawlessness.
Our roads are populated with unruly and lawless drivers many of them, mini-bus drivers who don’t seem to accept that they “carry” the lives of citizens in their buses. I have checked with at least one traffic officer and he confirmed that many of the traffic offences are being committed by mini-bus drivers.
The fact that there are traffic laws but this group of road users feel they can break them when they feel like, is enough to conclude that we are a lawless society.
But the bus drivers are not the only road users who feel that the roads are theirs. Those motorbike men are notorious for cutting ahead of you, using the middle line where there is one and creating one where there is none. And the rate at which they travel tells me the days of the speed limit is behind us. There go our laws again.
Then there is the settlement of disagreement by the use of the gun. No longer are disagreements settled by dialogue and good sense, we seem to have resorted to the days of ‘an eye for an eye’. We don’t wait on the law to take its course; we take it into our own hands and take revenge on those who have crossed our paths.
The most recent Facebook posting of a stabbing in public tells us how far we have gone away from decency.
We no longer care about where we do what; it is, perhaps, the norm (now) that the more people who see what we do and what we are capable of doing, the more they would fear us. See why many persons don’t leave their homes after a certain hour?
Editor, we must accept that this lawlessness in our society is a grave matter. Is it that persons have no confidence in the system or they simple don’t care? Do people feel it makes no sense reporting some matter to the authorities so they take matters into their own hands?
It is also time, perhaps, that we review our laws; make them more punitive and hopefully they would act as deterrents to those who feel they can literally take the law into their own hands.
Can we speak of nipping this lawlessness in the bud or has it gone beyond that stage?
Retiree.
Arnos Vale.