Slow down and live – Holness
Published:Friday | May 21, 2021 | 12:16 AMChristopher Serju/Senior Gleaner Writer
That was the simple but profound appeal from Prime Minister Andrew Holness to Jamaican road users on Thursday amid the grim forecast that between 435 and an unprecedented high of 472 commuters could be killed by year end.
Holness, chairman of the National Road Safety Council, made the disclosure during the launch of events to mark this year’s observance of the United Nations Global Road Safety Week.
With road deaths already at 149 for the first four months of the year, the carnage on the streets has trended ahead of the figures for the corresponding period for 2020.
The country is now recording an average of one road death every 18 hours, according to head of the Mona Informatics Institute, Dr Parris Lyew-Ayee Jr.
Since 2012 when the country recorded 260 road deaths, casualties did not dip below 300 for the remainder of the decade.
The year 2019 hit a gruesome milestone of 440 crash deaths, with a marginal decrease last year to 424.
“These are unacceptably high numbers and we are already seeing an alarming trend for this year ... ,” the prime minister said.
“We have also seen a troubling rise in the number of fatalities involving motorcyclists, and this was even prior to the onset of COVID-19 and the increased reliance on motorcycle delivery men.”
Holness urged the enactment of policies and the adoption of strategies to combat what he called an “international scourge of road injuries” that is now the leading cause of death in children and young adults aged five to 29.
“I appeal to road users in Jamaica, the wider Caribbean region, and the Americas, slow down and live,” the prime minister said.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer of The Jamaica National Group, Earl Jarrett, called for greater international attention on the pandemic of road deaths, with more than one million people across the world killed annually.
He argued that the 424 deaths from 386 traffic collisions in Jamaica last year were far too many for a country with a population of just under three million. He said that traffic deaths had far-reaching economic and social consequences.
“The majority of those being killed are pedestrians or cyclists who are considered to be among the working class, and the impact of this is felt by families and communities for many years as persons who die are typically young and are the main breadwinners for their families,” said Jarrett.
Insisting that all lives matter in Jamaica, Jarrett called on media practitioners to elevate road crash victims from the shadow of anonymity, giving them, in the process, dignity in death.