Traffic problem in most towns

THE EDITOR, Madam:

As one of the many caught in the traffic gridlock recently in St Ann, I was quite surprised to read an article published in The Gleaner on April 18 that permits for a particular venue have been suspended.

Now, on any given day, the section of roadway between Priory and Ocho Rios is extremely congested and unless the police are monitoring hotspots, severe delays are experienced when undisciplined drivers overtake and undertake the traffic line and create multiple lanes on a one-lane road, causing a bottleneck. This is precisely what happened last Saturday and with the influx of motorists from both Kingston and Montego Bay, there was total chaos.

This type of situation is occurring regularly in most of our towns. It only takes rain on a Friday evening in Montego Bay for traffic to come to a standstill, and there is chaos when there’s a major event.

Who remembers the Palisadoes gridlock one New Year’s Eve and the Falmouth gridlock when a section of the main road collapsed?

When permits are given, why aren’t plans instituted to deal with the expected increase in vehicular traffic?

Why aren’t advisories issued to inform and advise motorists to avoid that particular area if possible, and also to suggest alternate routes, and most of all, why can’t we curb the daily blatant indiscipline on our roads?

So, permits are suspended until we forget this latest incident and the indiscipline continues and worsens.

NOIDA COOKE