Crashing the economy
The human and economic toll of road crashes in Jamaica over the past two and a half years alone has been mind-numbing: More than 1,700 deaths, upwards of $36 billion paid out in motor vehicle claims, and hundreds of millions in life insurance claims.
Last year, Insurance Association of Jamaica (IAJ) past president Dr Adrian Stokes had reported that in, 2020, $13.6 billion hae been paid out to policyholders on approximately 44,000 motor vehicle claims. That translated to 846 claims per week.
Last Thursday, IAJ Executive Director Orville Johnson told the Jamaica Observer that motor vehicle claims for 2021 amounted to $14.5 billion.
He further noted that, as at June 2022, $8.5 billion has been paid out — more than the corresponding period for the past two years.
An indication of the severity of the problem is seen in the $35.85-million payout by Guardian Life to 33 life insurance claims filed due to motor vehicle crashes last year.
Guardian also shared with the Sunday Observer that between January and June this year it paid out $15.5 million on 14 claims.
A check with Sagicor late Friday evening did not yield a specific figure, given the hour when the Sunday Observer called; however, a company official said the payout on such claims from that firm would most likely be three times the Guardian numbers.
Data compiled by Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) show that 75 per cent of road fatalities and injuries in Jamaica are in “the economically productive age groups” — between 15 and 64 years.
With 6,845 road fatalities recorded between 2003 and 2021, and 281 as of July 29 this year, the strain is not only on the economy but the health sector in particular.
While local health officials appear not to have done a comprehensive study on the effect of the number of road crashes on the sector, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton was recently reported as saying that 80 per cent of the patients in the male surgical ward at Savanna-la-Mar General Hospital in Westmoreland are road crash victims.
A Cost of Care study on the economic effect that violence-related injuries and road traffic crashes are having on the health-care system, released in 2017, noted that more than 10,000 people are injured annually in road traffic crashes.
“In addition to the direct cost of treating patients with injuries, the indirect costs are no less significant. The loss of productivity, primarily in young people in some of the most productive years, must also be considered. Similarly, the long-term care and rehabilitation of those left with significant disability from limb amputations, paralysis, and severe brain injury are significant,” noted the study commissioned by JN Foundation and the National Health Fund and conducted in seven hospitals islandwide.
Included in the survey was a case study of a 24-year-old male motorcyclist who had not been wearing a helmet when he was hit by a motor car and taken to hospital. The cost of his treatment, which included ambulance transfer for neurosurgery, amounted to $9,272,500.
The study placed his loss of income at $3,600,000, assuming that he would have worked until age 65 at minimum wage of $5,600 per week.
“The loss of investment in business and infrastructure is another major concern,” the study added.
In 2004, then Minister of Transport Robert Pickersgill told the nation that the high incidence of motor vehicle crashes was burdening the country’s health facilities and putting pressure on the Government’s finances. According to Pickersgill, the cost of road crashes was in excess of US$518 million annually, which represented one per cent of the country’s gross national product.
In 2002, more than $1.4 billion was spent to provide health care to individuals as a result of motor vehicle collisions.
Last week, a St Ann family recalled the financial burden and emotional turmoil they grappled with, having to bury four loved ones who had died in a car crash in November 2020.
Thirty-four-year-old Kadean Howard, her daughter 13-year-old Jade-Ann McLean, her younger sister 14-year-old Rihanna Howard, and her common-law husband Jason Gayle were the victims.
Jacqueline Howard, Kadean’s aunt, told the Sunday Observer that the family had two funerals — one for the girls in February 2021, and the other for Kadean in April.
“We got no aid at all from anybody. All three of them, their fathers did the funeral. I can speak to the fact that we did the burials… all the costs were on us. No assistance came at all. None,” Jacqueline said.
The police reported that, about 7:50 am, a Toyota Fielder motor car with the four individuals on-board was travelling westward towards Trelawny when it slammed into a Mercedes Benz travelling in the opposite direction.
The Fielder overturned and burst into flames. The young girls were flung from the vehicle, and the adults were trapped inside and burnt to death.
Rolayne Campbell, a relative of all three females, said the family was plunged into economic hardship.
“The two adults, they were burnt out, so we weren’t able to identify them during the post-mortem that was done on December 30. We had to do DNA, so those bodies were released to us later. That took some months. We got the other two (Jade-Ann and Rihanna) immediately after the post-mortem because we were able to identify them. They were buried together in February,” she told the Sunday Observer.
“In March, we got the other two after the DNA results came back and they were positively identified. They were buried the April. After the bodies were sent to the funeral home we did not get to clear them the same day, so we had to pay an additional storage cost,” she added.
Campbell noted, however, that because this happened during the novel coronavirus pandemic, several expenses associated with activities leading up to the funerals were averted.
“It wasn’t normal; it was a lot. But family members — everybody chipped in. It was four families, so that kinda helped out. The nine-night and dead yard and all of that was held, but they weren’t as big as they would normally be because of the restrictions. But it was still a large sum of money,” Campbell explained.
Cassandra Braham identifies with the Howards, having had to bury one of her twin daughters, 17-year-old Kojiann “Tokie” Braham, in 2019.
Kojiann, who had dreamed of becoming a practical nurse, died just two weeks after graduating from Innswood High School. She was making preparations to enrol at Distinction College.
The young girl, along with her twin sister and some friends, had left home in west Kingston for a river excursion in Clarendon. But on their way back home the taxi in which they were travelling crashed on Salt River Road in Old Harbour. Kojiann died, while her sister suffered multiple injuries and had to undergo many expensive medical examinations.
Braham told the Sunday Observer that all expenses were covered by her.
“I didn’t get any assistance from anyone. No insurance… nothing like that. And my other daughter was in and out of hospital, but it kinda wrap up now,” she said, noting that her daughter had to do a full body scan, had an issue with her neck, and had blood clots in her feet.
A 2018 study by the World Bank found that reducing road traffic deaths and injuries could result in substantial long-term income gains for low- and middle-income countries. The study said countries that do not invest in road safety could miss out on between seven and 22 per cent in potential per capita GDP growth over a 24-year period.
On June 30 this year, Jamaica’s Transport Minister Audley Shaw, in an address to the United Nations Road Safety Fund High Level Meeting on Improving Global Road Safety and First Pledging Conference at United Nations Headquarters in New York, reaffirmed Jamaica’s commitment to reducing road traffic crashes, fatalities, and injuries.
“The challenges are many, but together we can work to alleviate the negative impacts on the development and growth of the family, community, and nation,” Shaw said.
Last year, the International Journal of Construction and Architecture Innovations reiterated that, like people across the world, Jamaicans succumb to road crashes daily, and that the impact they have on the country are recognised as a public health issue.
Last week Sunday, a 35-year-old man and a 56-year-old woman were confirmed dead, and 24 others hospitalised, after two buses — a Toyota Hiace and a Toyota Coaster — crashed head-on on the Llandovery main road in Runaway Bay, St Ann. Of that number, 19 are male.
On Thursday the fatalities rose to four.
Videos circulated on social media of the crash site showed passers-by attending to some of the victims who were in pain from what appeared to be broken bones.
Senior Superintendent of Police Dwight Powell, commanding officer for the St Ann police division, had reported that overtaking contributed to the collision.
Just last year, Stokes made a plea to motorists to employ more caution while driving.
“We have to do something about the way we drive. Our bad driving habits lead to fatalities on the road and multiple crashes, which impact motor claims,” he said at the IAJ’s post-annual general meeting in June.
But Colleen Roper had no insurance claims to collect after her 23-year-old son, Sanjay Davis, was hit from his motorcycle by a truck travelling in the opposite direction on the St Margaret’s Bay main road in Portland on May 28, 2021.
Roper said that when she went to the scene he had already died, and his motorbike was under the back wheel of the truck.
Roper told the Sunday Observer that, due financial difficulties, her son was buried months after the crash.
The GRSF had listed poor road infrastructure safety and conditions; lack of compliance with key risk factors; and vulnerable pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists as the three major challenges that were most likely to prevent Latin America and the Caribbean from achieving the United Nations Decade of Action’s goal of halving road traffic fatalities by 2020.
Last Thursday, director of Jamaica’s Road Safety Unit Deidrie Hudson Sinclair renewed a call for road users to exercise caution on the nation’s roads. Pointing to the 281 road deaths up to July 29 this year, Hudson Sinclair urged Jamaicans to take road safety seriously as the majority of collisions are related to bad driving practices.
The Road Safety Unit said that data for 2021 reveal that of the 487 road fatalities recorded for that year, speeding, drivers failing to keep left, and pedestrian error were the main causes of fatal crashes.
Giving a breakdown of the main causes of fatalities, the unit said that 59 motorists died as result of excessive speeding, with no regard to conditions; 27 motorists died from failing to keep to the near side or to the proper traffic lane; and 16 pedestrians died while walking or standing in the road.