KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Road Safety Unit is making a call for motorists to operate their vehicles with due consideration for the elderly on the nation’s roads.

The call comes against a background where, 50 senior citizens have died since the start of the year in road traffic crashes.

The unit in a release today said that this cohort of people dying as a result of road fatalities brings the number to 346 as of today.

A breakdown of the figures for elderly fatalities revealed that 22 were pedestrians; six were private motor car drivers; six were private passenger car passengers while, seven were pedal cyclists.

A further breakdown of the statistics showed that of the 50 senior citizens who have died, 18 were in the age group 60-64; 14 were between 65 -69; eight were in the age group 70 – 74; and 10 deaths occurred in the age group 75 and over.

Commenting on the statistics, Director of the Road Safety Unit, Kenute Hare said, “senior citizens are ranked in the vulnerable road user category, as they suffer from impediments such as decline in sight, substantial hearing loss, and reduction in depth and motion perception as well as significant decline in physical and cognitive capacity”.

“The elderly population should be treasured as they still contribute to nation building with the wealth of knowledge and experience they can impart to the society,” he added.

He noted that senior citizens’ ability to traverse our sometimes very crowded and frenzied traffic environment reduces with the ageing process; a situation he says that is makes them more susceptible to injury and death in the event of a crash as opposed to younger people.

On a general note, the unit said it is also urging motorists to employ defensive driving skills in the traffic environment to assist in curbing the loss of lives due to road traffic crashes.