What is it like driving on BVI roads?
As residents continue to press for the redevelopment of roadways across the territory, one legislator has said driving in the BVI is similar to taking an “obstacle course.”
At-Large representative and Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly Stacy “Buddha” Mather drew attention to the fact that drivers in the territory are constantly thinking about vehicular repairs. As such, he said the state of the roads are affecting the quality of life of residents.
“The young people will understand this — one drive on these roads is like driving on an obstacle course in a Nintendo game called MarioKart because you’re constantly dodging objects and hoping you don’t fall in a pothole,” Mather lamented.
He continued: “With that comes the expense of driving a vehicle and constantly thinking about repairs.”
Mather told legislators that the longer they take to address the issue of road repairs, the more hardships people will endure on a day-to-day basis. He also reminded legislators that there are many people who don’t have jobs that give allowances for vehicular repairs and upkeep.
Mather’s comments comes amid a recent announcement that the Public Works Department is getting ready to commission a new asphalt plant that will repair several roadways across the territory.
How would you describe your driving experience in the BVI? leave your comments below.
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UNFORTUNATELY THAT IS NOT A PRIORITHY OF THE PREMIER
Never mind what it’s like for the driver. Think about what it’s like for the cars that have to ride these roads: the driver mostly doesn’t realise it but the car is taking a beating every day.
is key to negotiating the BVI road obstacle course. Remembering the exact location of sunken manhole covers, dips, all sizes/depths of potholes, soft shoulders, slippery areas after rain, etc. is a required driving skill in the BVI. Reducing speed helps but very few drivers have realized this asset to obstacle course driving.
Driving on these roads feel like you on Ninja Warrior tbh #obstaclecourse
Given the billions of dollars of revenue paid into Government since the 1980s it makes you wonder what happened to the money? Where did it go? Why is our infrastruture so bad?
Perhaps if more taxpayers got to vote, scrutiny of the Government would be better?
Not a single government ever attempted to fix the roads properly. Patch it up and a year later it’s even worse. Who in their right mind thinks the BVI can ever be an independent country must be using magic mushrooms from Sage Mountain..
Sl** Wonder is far more interested in Swanning around the world to pointless meetings than the roads in BVI.
Or a cleanup, or the sewers , or the water, or the rip off price of electricity, or the overblown 19th century civil service.
or anything else as far as can be seen.
Kye, Kye, Kye!!!! Nuff said! Abject failure and utter waste of space and time. Got an HR guy running PWD, no proper tools & equipment for decades. Those whom pillage the treasury year in; year out can afford repairs and new vehicles. The auto dealers here scalp you with their exhortations on parts prices. It’s just one SNAFU after a next with these clowns….which minister giving out public funds now so I can go get assistance for my suspension and tires?!?!?
Our roads have a problem with insufficient and ineffective drainage. This means we keep spending to redo patches and fixes that simply cannot survive a major rain.
The thin, white water pipes under the roads have been sequentially bursting across Tortola. Burst – dig – dirt (for a long time) – patch — burst 5 feet away — dig — dirt — patch… repeat!
Between the rains from above and the water from burst pipes below, we just spend and re-spend with bad, short term money after bad money and pay over and over again for the same root causes.
We have to actually fix the underlying causes or just continue to drive on terrible yet expensive roads.
I have repairs of over $1500 on my vehicle because of these roads. You dodge the pothole and hit someone, you automatically in the wrong. You drop in the pothole, you break your rims, burst your tires, kill the wheel hubs and tires etc.
We are the winning here. The work of the Ministry of Communications and Works needs to be made a priority for people to thrive. One thousand speed bumps that kill your gas mileage! Constant digging up of the road for water pipe repairs…… when are we going to get this right?
Traveling to other islands or countries you wonder who was responsible for our roads. Even right near by or further afield with thousands upon thousands of traffic. Why are our roads so easily destroyed? You can fix Paraquita Bay this week by next week it is eroded. What we need are engineers who actually know what they are doing. And not some fly by night who collects a hefty salary for doing nothing.
And they don’t have 400M USD govt budgets!
This is a solvable problem. Others have solved (not just “big” countries).
We need prioritization AND a real plan from Works and the Government. And not piecemeal “petty contract” implementation.
The other islands roads are no better than the BVI roads.I have visited almost everyone of them. So shut the h**l up
Is like driving on on earth after the comet hit that killed the dinosaurs.
Is riding them old time wooden roller coaster.
On the back of a wild bull trying to break it in.
Being inside a paint can when the shaking to mix it.
Being in that movie 2012 at the end of the world when the road was falling apart and they was still driving on it.
Haiti have better roads than here!
EVERYTHING UNDER HIM GOING TO THE DOGS….WATER & SEWAGE, BVIEC AND PWD…
Pillage the NHI also
Trust me the drivers know because every time the car takes a beating the drivers has to dip in their $6.00 per hour paychecks and the cost to fix the car is more than the paycheck.
The Hon. Minister for Works has a clever plan… Let the roadways island-wide disintegrate back to gravel, then repave everything all at once!
Unfortunately the Hon. Minister misjudged the current resiliency of the roads and they did not fall apart in time for fresh paving prior to the last election. Hopefully the macadam will all be gone in time for the next election.
The cost of living is high in the BVI but the quality of life is so poor
Third world nations have better roads
They’re going to sell our environment to the Chinese in exchange for roads and an airport we don’t need..
That was the 1st road kye fixed in 2019 don’t forget when he and the was on the machine
The first thing to failure is proper and adequate resources. Are the necessary resources in place? it seems not.
The roads are disgusting. Potholes everywhere.