Child’s near-fatal accident prompts road safety review – MP

Government officials are urgently developing a comprehensive plan to enhance road safety along President Kennedy Drive, following a horrific accident involving a six-year-old schoolboy earlier this week, the area MP has said. 

The incident has sparked renewed debate about traffic management in school zones.

MP for St Michael West Chris Gibbs told Barbados TODAY on Thursday that after talks with the Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW), a plan was being developed to ensure the busy roadway was safer as it was within a school district.

“In having a conversation with MTW and specifically the CTO [chief technical officer], we’ve agreed that we’re going to look at a plan for that area, maybe designating it as a school zone, putting up some signage and also having a zebra crossing maybe in the middle where a lot of that activity happens and hopefully, with this plan in place, we don’t see this thing happen ever again. We minimize the risk of it because this road is very busy and you know we all see the container trucks come across at lightning speed sometimes, so we all just need to slow down, be aware, be careful as drivers,” he said.

Recovering Dakari Edwin with mom Natasha Martindale.

On Monday, six-year-old Dakari Edwin was seriously injured after being knocked down by a vehicle on President Kennedy Drive. Security footage from a nearby building, now circulating on social media, showed the student being violently flung into the air upon impact. The incident, widely shared on social media, sparked renewed debate about traffic management in school zones.

Gibbs said he was extremely pleased to hear that the Westbury Primary School pupil was on the mend.

He said: “We all would have seen the ferociousness of the hit and we were all holding our breaths, praying that he would be okay. Collective prayer is a powerful thing and with all of the Barbadians that were praying for him, you can’t tell me that prayer doesn’t work. When you see him, you see that he has some cuts, some scrapes, but it’s more like he fell off a bicycle rather than hit by a car.”

While there are zebra crossings in the nearby areas, a number of children decided to cross elsewhere, he added.

“In understanding how President Kennedy Drive works, there are two zebra crossings, one by St Leonard’s and one by the Westbury intersection lights. But unfortunately, some of the kids cut through the graveyard, St Leonard’s, they cut through that neighbourhood and they cross where there’s no crosswalk. Even up to yesterday after the incident, I still saw some kids doing it.”

Gibbs spoke to Barbados TODAY after making a donation to Edwin’s mother. (SZB)