For the second time in the last three weeks, the police recently blocked off the top of Mannings Hill Road in the middle of the evening rush-hour, with no notification whatever to the public. There was not a single policeman to assist with traffic at any of the resultant blocked intersections, at the foot of Mannings Hill Road or at the roadblock itself, where one was presented with an accumulation of police vehicles and absolutely no one giving instructions to the public as to what they were expected to do.

Hassle

The result was that after taking a good hour to get from Mary Brown's corner to the police blockade, just above where Whitehall Ave meets Mannings Hill Road, one was left with no alternative other than to crawl through the squalid little track that joins Mannings hill Road to the Constant Spring Police Station, along with a few hundred other vehicles, and then drive South on Constant Spring Road, turn west and spend the next hour in the traffic jam where Elizabeth Ave meets Red Hills Road, and where a massive tangle builds up in the middle of Red Hills Road. The next hour from Lee's Food Fair to Pricesmart completed the exercise in incompetence.

To make things worse

A police car did appear briefly at the Lee's roadblock but, as was to be expected, not the slightest effort was made to clear the traffic jam, the police car merely tried to bore into the traffic at another point, making the pile-up even worse.

Three hours from the Canadian High Commission to the foot of Red Hills in the pouring rain - how's that for effective policing! If the police are going to make this Mannings Hill Road escapade a habit - as they seem intent on doing - then someone ought to do a little basic training - a few elementary pointers on traffic-control would be a start.

I am, etc.,

MAURICE PAVELEY

Red Hills

St Andrew