Slashing crashes - Increased presence, more radar guns among police strategies to reduce accidents this year

Sheldon Williams, Gleaner Writer

Deputy Superintendent Gary McKenzie of the Jamaica Constabulary Force
(JCF) Traffic Division says the police will be introducing new
strategies this year to mitigate, among other things, road crashes.

He said the division is disappointed that as many as 305 road fatalities were recorded last year. He said the first matter of business for 2014 will be to reduce road fatalities to below 300 persons.

"That is a major concern for us, so that is the first priority. We plan to reduce traffic crashes, especially fatalities. We recognise, though, that once we have accidents, we may have deaths, so instead of just focusing on where fatal accidents occur, which is what we really did for the past three or four years, we will be focusing more on where they are likely to occur," McKenzie shared.

With research identifying speeding as a major contributing factor to crashes, the JCF will be acquiring more speed-monitoring radar machines for 2014.

"While we focused more on main roads last year, what we are going to do this year is to focus on more arterial roads. We recognise that there are quite a few of these roads that have been upgraded and they are the source of some of the crashes," McKenzie said.

TROUBLE SPOTS

Among the upgraded main roads McKenzie identified as trouble spots are the Mandela Highway and Washington Boulevard.

"When we look at a number of roads, they have either been widened or become smoother, and the tendency we are seeing is that when people get better roads, they tend to drive faster," he said. "This, of course, is part of a bigger policy where apart from just looking at excessive speeding, we are ensuring that there is higher police visibility on the roads," he added.

The JCF will also debut a more advanced database that will better monitor traffic breaches and allow for improved sharing of information among officers islandwide. This should make it easier to prosecute offenders.

"We have worked out a strategy to get all the warrants we have in terms of traffic breaches on one system, so wherever the police are, they will be able to access this information. We will be able to notify each other of warrants quicker, so a motorist could have warrants in Kingston and he can get picked up in Clarendon," McKenzie said.