A colleague traffic engineer from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory of the UK spoke about showing a photograph of a roundabout in an African country and challenging anyone to deduce on which side of the road vehicles were supposed to drive.

He said that motorists entering the roundabout took the shortest distance to their exit. At each entrance, traffic turned both right and left! This experience led that engineer to develop the term “motorised pedestrianisation” to describe motorists behaving like pedestrians, bobbing and weaving through traffic, indiscriminately changing lanes, driving on any side of the road and ignoring traffic management appurtenances.

Jamaica has not yet descended to this level, but it is clear that the stellar efforts of the highly qualified and experienced National Works Agency and the Road Safety Council are undermined by the overwhelming number of contraventions that render enforcement efforts futile.

Typically, many Jamaican drivers exhibit the mental disorder of antisocial behaviour where one, without remorse and without consideration, acts to harm the well-being of others. Generally, our road users only obey road laws because of fear of prosecution and loss of licence and when the chance of being caught is negligible, disorder reigns. This results in congestion which wastes fuel. The best traffic management measures may be in place, but without sufficient enforcement they may be all but useless.

Accidents result in monetary consequences. In Jamaica the fatality rate is about 63.5 people per 100,000 motor vehicles. (There are about 600,000 motor vehicles in Jamaica.) Compare this with UK, 6.2; US, 13.6; Singapore 27.4; Guatemala, 45.2; and Trinidad & Tobago, 69.8. The world average is 93.3 fatalities for each 100,000 motor vehicles. There is obviously scope for a significant reduction in fatalities and this would reap considerable economic benefit.

The difficulty is that there are about 800 traffic red lights in Jamaica which means that during the peak hours daily, lights change to red some 250,000 times. Assuming an average of one breach at each change (and we know that there are many more) and assuming that all of the approximately 11,000 police personnel in Jamaica were stationed at the lights they could perhaps write 250,000 tickets per day. (This would bring traffic to a standstill.)

This is impractical and if one-tenth of the police force were on traffic duty the chance of getting caught would therefore be 10 per cent. While one ticket is being written at least nine offenders are getting away.

On the roadway between lights there are also violations (speeding, dangerous overtaking, illegal turns, improper lane usage, motorcyclists without helmets, etc.) Therefore, taking all the possible charges per day including those outside of the peak hours the chance of being caught is perhaps less than 1 in 50.

The problem is one of numbers and the only way to deal with large volumes of data is to use technology.

On the roads in England, approximately four per cent are uninsured and this costs every insured motorist there, on average, about $4,000 for crashes involving uninsured drivers who kill 60 and injure 23,000 annually. Their solution is to identify the uninsured vehicle and stipulate a date by which coverage must be in place failing which it will be seized and crushed. The percentage of uninsured motor vehicles in Jamaica is very much more than four per cent and this is a problem demanding an urgent solution. Again, the answer is technology-based.

Cameras at intersections and other strategic locations can be monitored live and hours later the tickets transmitted. There is software for a camera to read licence plates and, on a click when an errant road user is noted, could generate a ticket with all the information (owner’s name, etc.). An operator would then select the infringement from a menu and transmit the ticket (including the video clip) with another click to e-mail and/or phone — which would be more than 20 times faster than stopping a driver and writing a ticket and also without causing congestion.

The system could be so designed that licence plate identification could be linked to an insurance company database and the system would be so fast that a delinquent vehicle identified at Devon House intersection would get a ticket by text before reaching Half-Way-Tree less than a kilometre away — all automatic, that is, without operator intervention!

The appropriate legal framework must first be put in place. This is already well underway and the new laws will make the owner of a vehicle liable and also ensure that every motor vehicle owner gives, in addition to a valid address, cell phone number and/or e-mail address.

Too expensive for Government? Not at all! This is done all over the world by public-private partnerships whereby a private entity owns the system, generates the tickets and receives payment from the revenue generated.

This could be a big money-making private sector venture while concurrently generating huge economic benefits. These benefits include lower accident rates, reduced loss of life, decreased injury and vehicle damage, lower insurance costs, crime fighting information and increased tourism by attracting tourists to drive on our roads.

The transportation situation is far more complex. Congestion wastes fuel and demands costly improvements. Congestion can also be reduced by use of public transportation (large buses) instead of well over one hundred thousand taxis.

Pedestrianisation is an essential element of public transportation and so, as roads are widened and sidewalks made smaller and less friendly, the incentive for motor vehicle ownership increases. We have a long way to go to minimise fuel wastage in the transportation sector but cameras are a first and necessary step.

(Robert Evans, PE, is an engineer.)