Road fatalities now over 250
KINGSTON, Jamaica — The number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes since the start of the year now stands at 255.
According to a release from the Ministry of Transport and Mining, this is a five per cent increase over the corresponding period last year.
Westmoreland, St Andrew, St Catherine, St Ann, St Elizabeth, St James, and Trelawny continue to be the leading parishes contributing to the high rate of fatalities.
However, Vando Palmer, director of public relations and communication in the Ministry of Transport, was quoted as saying that the situation could have been worse, had it not been for ‘Operation Zero Tolerance, launched in May of this year.
According to Palmer, at the launch of the operation, road fatalities were running at least 20 deaths ahead of last year’s figures. He says the sustained joint presence of the police and personnel from the Island Traffic Authority (ITA) has resulted in the removal of approximately 2,286 pairs of licence plates from defective vehicles and thousands of prosecutions for various breaches of the Road Traffic Act.
Palmer says Operation Zero Tolerance, which was initially a three-month exercise, will be continuing beyond the end of this month because of its successes, and more focus will now be placed in the leading parishes for crashes and fatalities.
