Early morning accident along Beetham Highway

The occupants of two vehicles which collided during an early morning accident along the Beetham Highway escaped with minor injuries.

According to reports shortly after 6 am yesterday, a Hilux collided with a Nissan Versa along the Westbound lane of the highway in the vicinity of the Beetham landfil. Officers of the Traffic and Highway patrol branch who were on patrol at the time promprtly responded and notified Emergency Medical Officials, who tended to the occupants.

Traffic came to a grinding halt for more than two hours after the accident, prompting officials from the Ministry of Works and Transport, Traffic Division to open the Westbound lane of the Priority Bus route to light vehicles until 9 am. Newsday spoke to the Ministry's Traffic Engineer Adande Piggott who said that while he was pleased with the overall response of the Ministry and its related agencies to the accident, he said that the Ministry will be conducting a post-mortem examination of the response to improve communications and enhance preparedness in similar situations.

"I was generally satisfied with the response time. There were officials on the ground within a very short period of time and I would like to commend all parties involved, especially the officers of the Inter Agency Task Force who responded and monitored the situation along the Beetham area. However there are aspects we can improve and we will be looking at that."

Piggot further urged motorists to avoid stopping to look at traffic accidents as this contributes to the traffic gridlock.