SPUR TREE, Manchester – Two road safety experts say inexperienced drivers, overweight and defective vehicles are among the main causes for fatalities on the crash-prone Spur Tree Hill main road in Manchester.

The crucial road links Mandeville and its environs to St Elizabeth and points west. Heavily laden, slow-moving trucks often hinder traffic on the steep, difficult hill, and there have been a number of fatal crashes involving trucks down the years.

Dr Lucien Jones, vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council, and a senior police officer, who asked not to be named, said drivers need training in how to manoeuvre on the steep hill.

As recently as last week, an out-of-control trailer loaded with sand collided with a motor car, resulting in both vehicles plunging over a precipice and three people being injured.

“The new Road Traffic Act is going to broaden the scope of training that takes place when they (drivers) go to the depot to get their licence and the kind of investigation which is done on vehicles when you go [for fitness],” Dr Jones told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday.

“Training is a central part of it in terms of getting your general licence or your trailer licence,” he added.

Regulations for the new Road Traffic Act finally made their way to Parliament on Tuesday, after three years since the passage of the Bill, which had seen Government and Opposition at loggerheads up to November.

Dr Jones pointed to the five-step safe systems approach, which he said has been adopted by the National Road Safety Council.

“The context within which we are talking about Spur Tree Hill and the number of crashes which have taken place on that road over the years is that last year 484 people died on the nation’s roads. It means therefore that the recommendations by the World Health Organization (WHO) that we should adopt the safe systems approach to promote road safety in the country and which the prime minister, who is the chairman of the Road Safety Council, has formally adopted safe roads, safe speeds, safe road users, safe vehicles and an efficient post-crash system,” he explained.

He said based on crash reports from the police, some drivers involved in crashes on the Spur Tree Hill main road do not engage in low gear early enough to slow the vehicle.

“[They] depend rather on brakes which can fail you, especially with very heavy vehicles and turning around those curves often leads to the kind of news reports that we get about crashes, both non-fatal and fatal,” he said.

“The number one warning to the drivers is to be extremely careful, when they are going down that road and also for those who are coming up the road, because you never can tell what may happen around those curves,” he added.

The senior police officer said overladen trucks are mainly to blame.

“As you start descend the hill the first sign says engage low gear, but it doesn’t matter the gear you engage in, if you are overloaded the vehicle still a guh run faster than the norm,” he said.

He said coming up the Winston Jones Highway from the east heading west puts a lot of pressure on the vehicles.

“It a guh run hotter than normal, because the hill is long. All the way up until you reach Hatfield. [When] it is time to descend the hill that vehicle is hot already. Whether you engage low gear or you [are] using your brake just the same, it is not holding as when it was cool,” he explained.

“If your vehicle is running too fast, you can’t change gear in the middle of the hill. It is a combination of things that cause accidents,” he added.

Experienced truckers have long had the habit of ‘chilling-out’ by parking outside Mandeville after completing the steep Winston Jones Highway before descending Spur Tree Hill.

“Driving a truck around Kingston to deliver [goods] is different from going downhill. Different ball game,” said the police source.

He added that inexperience and greed are also factors that lead to accidents involving heavy units.

“Plenty of the [truck drivers] want to make three trips in one day and it is not possible dem a force the thing,” he said.

Successive administrations have pledged to build a bypass road for Spur Tree Hill. It’s unclear how those plans will evolve, given expenditure realignments caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Said Dr Jones: “The answer to that kind of challenging road surface is to really build maybe another bypass road to that area, where the road is much straighter. It may have some amount of downhill, but as with the Edward Seaga Highway, the inclines are not as steep and they are much safer to negotiate than the Spur Tree Hill.”