‘This madness cannot continue’
Jones repeats call for sustained public education push after 10 road deaths in 4 days
OCHO RIOS, St Ann — With 10 road deaths across the country in the last four days, vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) Dr Lucien Jones is once again pushing for more public education campaigns.
“The National Road Safety Council is deeply concerned and alarmed that despite the gains we have made as a country in respect of having a new Road Traffic Act and ticketing system, some measure of public education through the media, and other important steps that have been taken to reduce road fatalities in this country, since the beginning of April, 10 people have died on our roads; 10 in four days,” said a concerned Jones.
One of the most recent fatal crashes happened on Wednesday evening on the Dunn’s River Main road in Ocho Rios, St Ann. The multi-vehicle collision resulted in the deaths of three people and left an infant in critical condition. This came on the heels of Monday’s two-vehicle crash on the Fairy Hill main road in Portland, which claimed the lives of six-year-old Jayden Woolery and his 53year-old father David Woolery. A child was also injured in that incident. There were also reports of fatal crashes in St Elizabeth and Westmoreland.
Jones spoke of the role the police, the Government and the private sector can play in helping to reduce the number of crashes on the country’s roads.
“This is a major disaster and calamity and the options for reducing our nation from this kind of carnage are not many. The police need to — and we call upon them and they have been doing — increase the level of enforcement on our roads,” he appealed.
“We must receive the kind of resources from both Government and the private sector to carry out sustained and frequent public educational campaigns in this country,” he stressed.
He went on to scold those who continue to disobey the rules of the road.
“All of this seems to be falling on deaf ears in this country. People continue to speed and drive recklessly which, if you examine what has happened in the last four days carefully, is the common theme,” he said.
“Yes, there are issues in terms of fixing the roads, but the common thing is that people are not staying in their lanes, they are driving recklessly and they are speeding,” Jones added.
He is hoping to see a change in road users’ behaviour.
“These are challenging times and the entire nation must be mobilised from top to bottom to put an end to this. This madness cannot continue, we cannot continue to lose precious lives like this!” he said.
Jones’ comments were supported by head of the St Ann police, Senior Superintendent Dwight Powell who urged motorists to stop speeding and follow the road code.
He said Wednesday’s fatal crash has brought the number of road deaths in the parish since the start of the year to 16, the result of 11 collisions.
“This of course is a significant increase when compared to the corresponding period last year when there were seven fatal collisions and seven fatalities,” Powell said.
“Earlier this week, I had put out a travel advisory to the travelling public to ensure that we follow the rules of the road and to ensure that we save the lives of people on our roadway,” he added.
According to data from the Road Safety Unit, as of April 4, there have been 112 fatalities on the nation’s roads, a five per cent decline in comparison to the corresponding period last year.