No easy New Year resolutions

HAPPY New Year . . . ? Thirtyseven killed on the roads of the TRNC during 2017 — and a horrific start to 2018, with two people already dead within twoand-a-half hours of midnight.

And so the deadly toll rolls on from one year to the next, with precious little sign of government concern, or of concerted and considered action to tackle the road safety curse which has now claimed 381 in the last 10 years. All families needlessly plunged into grief.

Yes, there are the occasional platitudes. The odd — and we use the word in every sense — sudden announcement of planned measures. Yet the necessary step of sitting down with experts to thrash out a comprehensive, workable and effective solution, and putting any agreed measures into practice as a matter of urgency, is never forthcoming.

The solutions that are needed must address some deeply ingrained driver behaviour. Speeding, carelessness and talking on the mobile phone while at the wheel are blamed over and over again for crashes, fatal or otherwise. Add to that drinkdriving, cited in four of this week’s reported accidents, and the potential for several factors at the same time, and the scale of the problem becomes clear.

It is not insurmountable, though. Other countries have made the effort and wellpublicised campaigns have sought to change motorists’ mindset. TRNC authorities must learn from their example.

Tomorrow’s general election, like the new year, offers the potential for a new start; to vote for change or bring back the current administration — albeit, perhaps, with a shift in the balance of power.

It offers the opportunity for a clean slate and a fresh take on the country’s problems, improving life for those who live here.

But the reality is that many of those problems — like the thoughtless actions of phonewielding, speeding, drink-drivers — are systemic and deeply rooted, and will also take long, hard effort to resolve.