In its latest effort to reduce the increasing number of road fatalities, the Ministry of Transport and Mining officially launched a new mobile app called Drive Safe on Wednesday.

The app will unite available technical and human resources of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch and the Transport Authority (TA) to work with the public to upload videos and still photographs of irregular behaviour on the roads with location, time and date information.

“I want to encourage everybody to download the app and to encourage your children and your friends to download it,” Robert Montague, minister of transport and mining, said about the initiative.

Fatalities have shot past the 400 deaths mark, making this month the worst year since 2002.

 With the introduction of the app, it is hoped it will inspire more road users to assist the JCF and the Transport Authority to tackle some of deviant behaviour with videos received from the exercise.

 “The last time we came close to this and over 400 was in 2002, so that’s 17 years ago, and before that was when the council was started in 1993, when it was 434. In 2002, 408 people died,” said Dr Lucien Jones, vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council.

The 408 deaths in 2002 comprised 313 males and 95 females, a figure which is indicative of the huge gap between males and females dying on the roads. But, this is also influenced by the fact that fewer women drove cars and motorcycles, or ride pedal cycles, although they are quite sizeable number of the pedestrians.

Pedestrians’ road deaths and, to some extent, crashes involving route buses had been a major headache for the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) and its monitoring arm, the Road Safety Unit (RSU), headed by Kenute Hare. However, over the last few years the numbers of these deaths on the roads have been eclipsed by that of motorcyclists which has already reached 123, compared to 85 pedestrians.

So far, 417 people have died on the roads, despite the NRSC’s aim of reducing deaths below 300 since 2006. The country only made that target in 2012.

The issue is of major concern to the NRSC and, according to Jones, when the council has its next quarterly meeting with its chairman, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in mid-January, the focus will have to be on revamping the current under-300 strategy.

 He pointed out that the strategy was primarily aimed at reducing the number of deaths per 100,000 from the current 14.6 per cent to more bearable figure of just under 10 per cent, as a start.

He said that the authorities will have to get back to the drawing board and devise new strategies to improve road safety.

In the meantime, the RSU has been appealing to motorists and pedestrians to exercise more caution on the roads. Hare said they need to exercise greater caution on the roads.

“We are appealing to drivers to cut their speed and look out for vulnerable road users,” he said.

He also urged drivers not to overtake at a bend or at a junction or unnecessarily and never drive in a manner that is offensive to other road users. He said that they should also always use their seatbelts, all the time, and ensure that passengers in their vehicle use them as well.

But, according to Jones, road deaths are not only caused by the use of roads, but also the quality of the roads, as the safety of the vehicles being driven on the roads.

He said that too many of the vehicles are sub-standard, and too many roads are filled with potholes which the drivers try to escape.

“We have to make sure that we have proper roads, and we need to empower the police to deal with the issues,” he said, noting the long delay in the implementation of the new Road Traffic Act.