I moved to Nawala from Havelock Town recently, but I need to make an almost daily trip to the old environs. I thank my stars that, as a retired person, I am not tied down to rigid time-keeping, for negotiating the Kirula Road/Elvitigala Mawatha junction is a time-consuming nightmare. I have no doubt at all that eventually that junction will be a well-organised and clean one controlled by well-positioned traffic lights, but what about the bedlam that now exists there?

It is quite apparent that what is needed right now are about 4 active, well-trained and quick-thinking traffic policemen on duty at peak times. What we have now, alas!, are two helpless, incompetent individuals who, in fact, contribute unwittingly to the mayhem at this important junction. I strongly urge the high-ups in the traffic section of the police to travel, incognito, in non-police cars driving themselves, each travelling on the different roads that meet at this junction and experience at first-hand the chaos that the average motorist has to experience and endure.

Of course contributing to the mess are the thoughtless drivers - mainly van and light truck drivers and a few so-called "gentlemen" drivers - and the only solution to this situation is to have at least two strategically placed, hawk-eyed disciplinary teams that will pull up the miscreants and take over the driving licences which wll be handed back to the owners after they have attended a traffic lecture.

It would appear to observant motorists that there is a desperate shortage of policemen in the traffic section: a very short-sighted under staffing of a vital sector. If the police force is established to maintain law and order, then in today’s context law, order and discipline in traffic are vital factors to be established and maintained.

S. H. de SIlva,
Nawala.