94 persons killed in road accidents so far this year

– over 20,000 speeding cases recorded

Despite reports of carnage on the roadways continuing to hit the headlines, Traffic Chief Dion Moore has revealed that, in fact, there was a 19 per cent decrease in fatal accidents compared with the same period last year.

It can, however, be contended that more accident-reducing measures are still required to be implemented as 94 persons were killed so far this year.
The Police statistics for traffic covered the period January-November 10, 2017 and the numbers were compared with figures from last year up to the corresponding period. According to the stats, there were 100 fatal accidents in 2016, but only 81 in 2017 over the comparative period.
Moore specifically highlighted the 78 per cent decrease that was observed in child deaths from fatal accidents as two cases were recorded for the year so far, as against nine in 2016. There were 110 deaths in 2016, but 94 in 2017 which reflected the 19 per cent decrease that the Traffic Chief highlighted.

Of the 94 deaths recorded for this year, the highest number was seen for pedestrians with 30 persons killed while two bus passengers and two pillion riders were also killed. Twelve pedal cyclists and 19 motorcyclists were killed so far. Additionally, 13 drivers died and 16 passengers met the same fate. It was determined that speeding and Driving Under the Influence of alcohol (DUI) were the principal contributory factors of fatal accidents. The ages of the drivers involved in fatal accidents up to November 2017 fell within the 25-33 range.
Assessing the overall numbers, Moore pointed out that there were 260 cases of serious accidents which reflected a decrease of nine per cent, given that there were 286 such cases last year. He further highlighted that a decline was recorded in all of the categories. For 2017, there were 20,823 cases of speeding recorded, up from 20, 145 such cases last year. Private hire cases increased from 229 to 455 while unlicensed driver cases increased well over 100 per cent from 230 to 640. Using cellphone while driving cases numbered 1028, while 1543 DUI cases were recorded. There were 1858 cases of overloaded minibuses and 1378 tinted motor vehicle cases for 2017.
Moore opined that despite some criticisms, Operation Safeway has yielded success. It was launched in September 2016 with the mandate to curb the spiking road fatalities. The aim was to have more road safety-conscious drivers and to promote better driving attitudes as well as road safety practices.