MONDAY'S BLOODY road crash claiming four lives on the Winston Jones Highway in Manchester has pushed the toll of deaths to 153 from 137 fatal accidents since the start of the year. This represents a 12 per cent decrease over the corresponding period for last year when there were 173 killed in 156 fatal accidents.
That marginal improvement, however, is not reflected in the incidence of recklessness and irresponsibility, especially from drivers in mass transit, whether by minibus or taxi.
The traffic police have vowed to fully enforce the seat belt law this year, following the spate of car accidents in December, three of which took the lives of 18 people. In all three instances, the vehicles were overcrowded.
On December 20, 2004, six persons were killed when the car in which they were travelling collided with a truck along the Bog Walk main road in St. Catherine. Five days later, six more persons died when their car ran off the road on the border of Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth. And on December 27, six persons lost their lives in a motor vehicle accident when their car plunged into a canal along the Lodge main road in St. Ann. The taxi driver reportedly fled the scene.
Ken Hare, an accident analyst at the Road Safety Unit in the Ministry of Transport, attributes these accidents to human error, the flouting of traffic regulations, signs and markings by road users and the reluctance of passengers to wear seat belts. Most taxis do not employ a child restraint system to prevent fatalities in case of accidents.
What is even more disturbing is that public and private passengers seem to have no compunction about being transported to their destinations in this hazardous way.
These passengers must exert their right to safe transport and take personal responsibility for their lives. Many road fatalities involve vehicles with multiple passengers, who as adults, sit passively in a bus or car and allow reckless drivers to speed at will.
During a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum, Senior Superintendent Elan Powell, head of the island's Police Traffic Division, revealed that there was a minibus driver who had 126 outstanding tickets. If we are to effectively reduce the number of road tragedies we must take a more proactive stance, and get rid of these 'serial offenders' from the nation's roads.
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