With Jamaica recording 175 fatalities from 151 fatal collisions since the start of this year, the Jamaica Observer Online, in association with a number of partners, has produced a supplement dubbed ‘NO NEED FOR SPEED, which looks at all aspects of the carnage on the roads. This is one of the many stories in the supplement which can be accessed at https://www.flipsnack.com/AA895DF569B/no-need-for-speed-june-2024/full-view.html.

Crash figures from Jamaica’s Road Safety Unit (RSU) paint a daunting picture. The nation has not been able to keep road fatalities below the 300 mark since 2012, when 260 deaths were recorded, while the number of road users killed in the country each year has remained stubbornly above the 400 mark every year since 2019.

The remarkable feat of ‘just’ 260 deaths (it was 308 in 2011) occurred the same year the RSU launched its campaign to keep road deaths below 300. However, while the campaign has not been abandoned, the carnage continues to pile-up on the nation’s roads, even in the face of a new Road Traffic Act with far more stringent penalties for breaches.

A review of the accident statistics provided by the RSU shows that so-called crash hot spots are responsible for just under half of fatal crashes and fatalities each year. These crash hot spots are spread across the length and breadth of the country.

A crash hot spot loosely refers to areas where at least two crash incidents occur. They are regarded as hazardous, high-risk locations which are accident-prone. They also refer to places that require improvement as is the case with many of Jamaica’s roads.

Statistics provided by the RSU show that of 2,283 fatalities recorded between 2019 and 2023, nearly 40 per cent, or 895, were in hot spot areas.

If there is one silver lining amidst the carnage, it is that not all crash hot spots are created equal — there are a few roads in Jamaica that are seemingly stalked by death, where hardly a week goes by without a fatal crash being reported in the news.

The worst hot spots are located in the parishes of St Ann, St Catherine, St James, Clarendon, Westmoreland, and parts of Kingston and St Andrew as listed below:

• The Rose Hall main road in the tourism mecca of St James was the most treacherous for motorists over the five years between 2019 and 2023 as it recorded at least 34 fatalities. Some of those crashes would have involved visitors who may just not have been familiar with local driving conditions. Even so, when the 11 fatalities on the Ironshore main road and the 10 deaths on the AGS Coombs Highway, both in St James, are added, those three roads alone accounted for 55 fatal crashes in five years or 11 each year.

• Named after the famed anti-apartheid activist, politician, and statesman who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994, the Nelson Mandela Highway was perhaps Jamaica’s first crash hot spot. It claimed at least 33 lives in the past five years. There has been improvements made to the driving surface but it is also one of the most traversed roadways in the entire country. With the Old Harbour Road accounting for 29 fatalities during the period and the always-congested Spanish Town Bypass claiming 12 lives, these three roads were responsible for 71 road deaths or just over 14 per year, making St Catherine one of the country’s deadliest parishes for road users.

• The Bustamante Highway in Clarendon was one of the earliest-designated crash hot spots in Jamaica and it has continued the dubious designation ever since. In the last five years it claimed at least 27 lives for an average of nearly 5.5 deaths each year.

• Spanish Town Road, one of the main arterial roads in the Corporate Area, is a known crash hot spot. It has been poorly maintained for many years, a fact made worse in recent times due to a major pipe-laying project to improve the water supply in parts of Kingston and St Andrew. At peak hour, the traffic snakes along the roadway. At least 25 road users perished along this much-used thoroughfare between 2019 and 2023, making it five deaths each year.

• The Llandovery main road in St Ann is known for numerous crashes, many fatal. It recorded 19 fatalities during the period under review. This main road aside, motorists traversing the parish should be minded to exercise extreme caution. This as the Runaway main road had 13 fatalities during the period, 11 were recorded on the Discovery Bay main road, eight each on the Edward Seaga Highway and the Ocho Rios Bypass and six on the Richmond main road. These six roads claimed 65 lives in five years.

• The Bay main road in Little London, Westmoreland, recorded 17 road deaths in five years. Several of those would have involved motorcyclists who are among the most vulnerable road users in Jamaica. Also in Westmoreland, the Waterworks main road claimed nine lives; eight people died in crashes on the Petersfield main road, seven on the Namphriel main road and six each on the New Hope and White House main roads.

• Washington Boulevard in St Andrew is another major arterial road, another traffic-choked thoroughfare that is accident-prone. At least 16 people were killed in its traffic lanes over five years.

Other problematic roadways across the country include the Melrose Hill Bypass and Winston Jones Highway which each claimed 14 lives and the Hague main road and North Coast Highway in Trelawny where 13 and 11 road users were killed respectively. Waltham Park Road, Hagley Park Road, Constant Spring Road and Marcus Garvey Drive in the Corporate Area are also well known crash hot spots.

The Temple Hall main road in West Rural St Andrew and the Palisadoes main road in Kingston featured as crash hot spots during the period as they claimed a combined 21 lives.

Five motorcycle-riding young men from the Lawrence Tavern community were killed in a horrific crash along the Temple Hall main road in February 2023. That pushed to 11, the number of fatalities recorded on the tricky thoroughfare between 2019 and 2023.

A crash in December 2022 that claimed four lives on the Palisadoes main road saw that roadway record 10 deaths during the period.