Lloyd Richards, 47, a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporter of Love Lane, Kingston, yesterday lost his life in a motor vehicle accident during a political motorcade, after his protruding head smashed into bamboo plants along the Holland Bamboo Main Road in St Elizabeth.

The Lacovia police report that the Lite Ace bus in which Richards was travelling was transporting JLP supporters to a meeting in Savanna-la-Mar.

A red car, which the police had not, up to last night, ascertained the registration, tried to overtake the bus, but was hindered by an oncoming vehicle. To avoid a collision with the approaching vehicle, the car slammed into the right front section of the bus, and sent it crashing into a cluster of bamboo.

Richards, whose head was hanging out the window, sustained a wound to his neck. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead.

Last month, the JLP banned motorcades in its Area Council Four, which includes St Elizabeth, Westmoreland, Hanover, St James and Trelawny.

“Motorcades are costly, ineffective and they encourage indiscipline,” JLP deputy leader in charge of Area Council Four, Horace Chang, was quoted as saying then.