VICE-CHAIRMAN of National Road Safety Council (NRSC) Dr Lucien Jones has added his voice to those urging young male drivers to take better care on the roads.

According to Jones, far too many young men, between the ages of 18 and 39, are making poor decisions on the roads and this has contributed greatly to crashes from which others have died and through which they have also lost their lives.

Jones on Monday told the Jamaica Observer that he agrees with the observation made by head of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch (PSTEB), Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Gary McKenzie who recently voiced this concern.

“They [young men] are making poor decisions for many reasons. One is that many of them are driving under the influence of alcohol and ganja; and texting and driving. Some of them… have not passed any driving test and yet they’re on the roads. They can’t drive [and] they haven’t learned to drive.

“Some of them are making poor decisions about speeding, driving way too quickly — even on straight roads, much less around corners. We all know, we see it daily how many of our drivers go through the red lights cynically without care,” said Jones.

He argued that the young motorists are behaving in this manner because they believe they will not get caught.

“We need to mobilise the entire resource of this nation to make sure that people understand that if they continue to behave like this, they are going to get caught. And the Island Traffic Authority, which has the responsibility for suspending your licence when you exceed a certain number of demerit points, needs to get its act together very quickly to make sure that we have a very efficient system [so] that when those demerit points have been exceeded your licence is suspended — and this will make people feel it in their pockets,” added Jones.

The road safety advocate charged that a way needs to be found to, “flood this nation with cameras so that people know, without any doubt, that if you continue to make poor decisions you will get caught or worse, you will suffer injury, and you will die, and others will die because of your behaviour”.

Jones stressed that far too many people are dying needlessly on our roads and suffering grievous injuries, as he noted that 10 people died in the first four or five days of April and that 112 people have died on the nation’s roads from 96 crashes, up to the time he spoke with the
Observer.

He pointed to the most recent eight-vehicle collision which occurred last Saturday on the Edward Seaga Highway and which involved traffic heading towards the Caymanas toll booth.

“We need to look at these things with the wisdom of our grandparents and ‘take sleep and mark death’ in the sense that although (thank God) there are no deaths reported [in that crash], this thing could have escalated quickly into another tragic incident,” said Jones.

In the meantime, Road Safety Unit (RSU) in the Ministry of Transport, in its report for January 1 to April 5, 2024, renewed its call for road users to exercise greater caution when traversing the roadways, despite a five per cent decline in road fatalities for the first quarter of 2024 when compared to the corresponding period in 2023.

It noted that motorcyclists, pedestrians, and private motor vehicle drivers were the top three road user categories with the highest number of road fatalities during the quarter.

According to the RSU, the main causes of these fatalities were speeding, failure to keep to the proper traffic lane, and pedestrians walking out into or standing in the roadway.

“The intention of all road users is to get to their destination safely, and back home. Road users must ensure they cut out distractions, cut out all unnecessary actions that could lead to a crash or a fatality, and think about their loved ones who they want to go home to. It is also very important that they learn the road code and abide by it. Road users must…increase their vigilance at nights and during adverse weather conditions,” the RSU said.