WITH 312 fatalities recorded on Jamaica’s roads up to Sunday there are growing fears that traffic safety campaigns by the authorities are falling on deaf years.

The latest official figures from the police show road fatalities now at five per cent above the 297 recorded over the corresponding period last year, with vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) Dr Lucien Jones describing the number as very alarming and a cause of much distress.

“There is a great alarm. We have been talking about this for the past two months that the trend is going upwards and in the wrong direction,” a concerned Jones told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday.

He said the current number of road deaths is five per cent more than for the same period last year.

“For this year, we have seen where we have gone from minus figures in January, February, March, April and May to a 30 per cent increase in June and 90 per cent increase in July in road deaths,” Jones said.

“August was 38 per cent [above August 2024] and last month it dropped to six per cent [above 2024]. We are heading in the wrong direction — and the Christmas period is up on us. If we don’t get our act together as a country we are going to exceed 400 road deaths for this year. Last year it was 365. The year before it was 435. We are going right back there,” Jones lamented.

He argued that it is not a failure on the part of the NRSC why the number of road deaths is increasing.

According to Jones, people have been speeding and have not been staying in their lane, hence the reason so many are dying.

He charged that aspects of the Road Traffic Act are not being rolled out properly.

“The only way to stop that kind of behaviour in the short term is to roll out the new Road Traffic Act and apply [the] sanctions so that when people go on the road they know that if they break the law, they are going to be caught, they are going to be fined. And if they don’t pay the fine, they go to court.

“If they don’t go to court, a warrant is issued for their arrest. More warrants are being issued, more fines are being applied, and that is working. What is not working is the demerit points system whereby if you accumulate more than a certain demerit points, your licence will be suspended and you can’t drive. That is certainly not working,” added Jones.

He told the Observer that it is not only the rising road deaths that the country should be worried about.

“We are talking about pain and grief. We are losing productive individuals between age 20 and 50 who could be contributing significantly to the country and making us grow. On the other hand, we are paying enormous cost[s] for the care of those injured riding a bike or driving a car because people are not using their seatbelts and buckling up from and back, pedestrians are not walking carefully.

“A whole lot of pedestrians and motorcyclists are dying. A whole lot of them are being injured because they are not wearing the proper clothes, because they are driving under the influence of alcohol and ganja, and because they are speeding. We are very much alarmed and distressed. It’s a whole mixed bag of stuff that the country is not paying attention to,” said Jones.

He pointed to a fluctuating trend in road deaths which he has noticed since 2010.

“When we started in 1993 Jamaica was regularly experiencing more than 400 road deaths per year. When the National Road Safety Council was started and we lobbied for changes in legislation — especially safety devices and also helmet use and driving under the influence of alcohol — the behaviour of our people changed. In 2010 it fell to 260. That is the lowest we have ever had. Ever since then it has been climbing. And it has been shifting from one figure to another but mostly climbing until about 2022 when it went up to about 500,” he said.

Jones noted that motorcyclists have featured heavily in the increase in fatal crashes in recent years.

“When the figure dropped to 260 in 2010, that year, about 40 motorcyclists died. In 2022/2023 the figure went up to almost 150. The main challenge we have as a country right now and for some time is how to reduce motorcycle deaths.

“The second issue is that between last year and this year we had a 20 per cent increase in what the police described as the biggest reasons for people dying on our roads — speeding and people driving recklessly. We have had a significant increase in people making bad choices — whether because of the lack of training and they don’t know how to drive, or they are driving recklessly,” Jones said.

Among the latest road fatalities was male a driver whose identity has not been disclosed. He died in a crash along the Ocho Rios bypass, near its junction with New Buckfield, about 2:19 am Sunday.

Police investigators have listed overtaking improperly, excess speed with no regard to the road condition, and apparent error of judgement/negligence as the possible cause of that crash which involved a Mazda Atenza motor car and a Toyota Voxy.

On Saturday, a man driving a motorcycle with no registration plate died after the motorcycle collided with a Toyota Tercell motor car on the Longsyne Park main road in Manchester.

On Friday a man identified as Evroy Dixon, and 35-year-old Adrimar Smith were killed in a car crash on Winston Jones Highway in Manchester.

This 2023 file photo shows what is left of a motor vehicle after a crash. The latest official figures from the police show road fatalities now at five per cent above the 297 recorded over the corresponding period last year.

JONES… we are very much alarmed and distressed