Dear Editor,

I wish to join Senator Arthur Williams’ call for a revision of the speed limit regime that is in force on our roads. In my opinion, in many instances, the existing speed limit is nothing short of ridiculous.

As the Senator pointed out, those limits were introduced in the 1930s when road surfaces were, at best, tolerable. But, over the years, especially in the last 10 years, our roads have improved beyond anything many of us would have expected or imagined. When you combine that with the efficiency of our current motor vehicles, it makes the existing statutes all the more ridiculous.

As Senator Williams noted, motor vehicles are now much safer and easier to handle, especially on our vastly improved road surfaces. The truth is that even without trying, and without noticing, one exceeds the speed limits regularly because of just the natural “pull” of most modern cars.

I would also like to add to the foregoing an appeal to the National Road Safety Council to immediately begin an intense, practical public education campaign relating to driving on multi-lane roadways, particularly Mandela Highway and the toll roads. I would assume that a vast majority of Jamaican drivers have never driven in North America, where it is drilled into the motoring public that slower moving vehicles stay in the right lane, leaving the middle and left lanes clear, as much as possible, for faster moving vehicles. (Of course, in Jamaica, it would be the other way around, where the slower moving vehicles would stay in the left lane.)

The daily experience of vehicles driving abreast, even below the speed limit, on these two roadways is extremely frustrating, causing many drivers who want to get by to take unnecessary risks to do so.

There are a few piddly signs that instruct, “Stay left, Pass right”, but these are woefully inadequate. It is time for such a campaign in Jamaica.

Stephen Harrison

St Mary

stepharrison28@gmail.com