I was the passenger

March 1, 2008

Dear Sir,

I read with horror and paradoxically some considerable accord the letter written by Kathy Landy on December 29, 2007 in response to my letter 'Bermudians Can't Drive' (20.12.07). As a visitor to Bermuda and being back in England I did not know the letter I wrote to you had been published or I would have responded earlier. Having been publicly fairly explicitly accused of a criminal offence, I feel the very urgent need to clarify some serious misunderstandings on Ms Landy's part.

Most importantly regarding my letter of complaint about the poor standard of driving in Bermuda, when citing the example of nearly being killed on a blind bend during a visit, I was the front seat passenger of the vehicle that was nearly hit and not its driver as inferred by Ms Landy. The driver and owner of the vehicle I was in is a born and bred Bermudian and a highly responsible driver. It was his skill that saved our lives. The elderly couple I referred to were in the vehicle that was overtaken on the blind bend. The driver of the brown car that overtook and nearly killed four people is unknown.

I would never consider getting behind the wheel of a car I was not insured or qualified to drive. If I ever learned of an unentitled driver on your roads I would be straight down to the nearest police station. Incidentally, I have been driving for nearly 20 years and have a totally clean license. I have never had a point on my license and have never even had to claim on my car insurance. Also my letter stated I had been visiting the island for six years, not on six occasions as cited. My passport has 14 Bermuda stamps in it, along with two visitor extensions. I have therefore been much 'exposed' to Bermuda's roads and speak with some repeated experience.

However, whilst being considerably personally misrepresented by Kathy Landy, I could not agree more with her sentiment to report anything seen on your roads that is dangerous or dubious and I applaud her for saying this. She is so right when she expresses the fact that all Bermudians have a responsibility to make the roads safe for everyone. I think the title of Kathy's letter, 'Let's Change This', which encourages reporting, is brilliant. I would also like to congratulate her for receiving her 'Safe and Courteous' driving award in 1999 and given this qualification any advice offered by her regarding road safety ought to be taken seriously at the highest level.

I am a secondary school teacher and the school's Health and Safety Manager overseeing the daily welfare of nearly one thousand people. I drive to school every day along the A258 (Kent, England) a very dangerous road which has seen the tragic deaths of several people in recent years. It is widely accepted amongst the public and the police that with safer driving and better road conditions most of these deaths could have been avoided. I therefore wholeheartedly supported a recent petition to Whitehall (17.01.08), backed by my local MP Gwyn Prosser, calling for increased safety measures to the road.

Oh, by the way, I too have witnessed some of the most appalling driving by visitors on bikes – oh don't get me started! Perhaps the most potentially lethal occurred two years ago, in front of many Bermudian drivers. Two tourists on their hired bike, a man driving it and a woman passenger, the man deciding the large roundabout in front of him didn't exist. For the sake of a sharp-eyed man in a white car, they would have undoubtedly been seriously injured or killed, therefore…on reflection I humbly admit to being harsh. Of course not all Bermudians are bad drivers. But there are a significant minority. So I say to those people – when you drive, you are in control of a potentially lethal weapon. And you know it. And the law, I hope, will more rigorously reflect this if you are indifferent to it or other road users.

Anna Stevenson

Kent, England

Cement conspiracy theory

February 5, 2008

Dear Sir,

A friend asked me to read Jim Butterfield's "I did my best" (RG June?). When I finally did, it raised more questions for me than it answered. My casual and superficial attention to the issue left me with vague impressions of "black and white", "economic empowerment" — or something. Even so, that explanation always bothered me because the PLP had done nothing of which I was aware that had to do with "black economic empowerment" until the North Hamilton project. Considering the fact that they placed Pro-Active with a white firm that cost the Government more than Pro-Active would have underscores for me their lack of real interest in even the rhetoric of "black economic empowerment" until, as I said, the North Hamilton Project.

Even before I read the article blacks were telling me positive things about Jim Butterfield. The most significant seems to have been that he hired black men whom some may have thought were "not employable".

I read the article and that raised real questions — which I answered by believing that there was a conspiracy!

(1) The article informed me that Jim Butterfield had problems in 1984 when the (white) UBP was in power and it took a black man (Minister Quinton Edness) to rescue him!

(2) The current company still has white in dominance and fewer blacks as shareholders.

(3) Mr. Butterfield and the Butterfield family from which he comes has done no more harm to blacks than any other wealthy white Bermudian family. In fact there is the reputation that they have done a great deal of good.

(4) Not irrelevant to me is the fact that his wife, Debbie Butterfield leads the very popular, interdenominational, very very "integrated" Bible Study Fellowship.

Thus my conspiracy theory. Jim Butterfield's enemy is someone in the white community who did not succeed in getting rid of him in 1984 and decided to manipulate some naive black person with chatter about "black economic power" and some "foolish" (or self interested) person in the PLP has gone along with the programme. If that is so, that is very sad for many reasons. One of which is that a black person can still be manipulated in that fashion.

One thing is very clear to me anyway and that is that Mr. Butterfield's enemy has nothing to do with "black economic empowerment" than the deal which former Minister Renee Webb made with Coco Reefs and the principle of "black economic power" should not be saddled with or tainted with, either of these very questionable issues.

Eva N. Hodgson