Losing five members of one family at the same time is always a most difficult experience. It is even more painful, we expect, when those who have died are young and hardly in the prime of their lives.

We therefore empathise with the family of those five young men who died in that awful crash on the Temple Hall main road in St Andrew on Sunday night, and we extend our deepest condolence to them as they grieve.

It will be important that they receive the support of their community and from professionals skilled in assisting people to navigate periods of bereavement. As such, we commend psychologist Dr Carla Dunbar for offering to provide counselling to the relatives and hope that her efforts will bear fruit.

Without empirical evidence we cannot say what caused that crash. People at the scene on Monday have claimed that potholes in the road forced the young men, who were travelling on three motorcycles, to swerve into an oncoming bus. That may very well be true. At the same time, the police have said that none of the young men were wearing protective helmets. The suggestion, therefore, is that had they been so equipped they possibly could have been spared head injuries. That, too, may be true, and the point will most likely be argued for some time.

However, Sunday’s crash, we believe, has drawn attention to the sort of daredevil culture that exists among motorists in this country. It is not uncommon to see motorists driving at break-neck speed that, should they encounter difficulties, limit their ability to respond in time to save lives and prevent damage.

Add to that the flagrant disregard for traffic laws and we get into the realm of the mind-blowing carnage of which Dr Lucien Jones, the vice-chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), spoke about in yesterday’s Jamaica Observer.

Dr Jones made the comment against the background of 12 deaths from road crashes in 48 hours last weekend.

As our story yesterday pointed out, up to Monday there were 67 deaths from 58 road collisions across the island since January, compared with 82 from 73 crashes for the similar period in 2022.

Road safety, as we have pointed out before, is dependent on a number of factors, among them proper infrastructure, such as vertical and horizontal markings; proper sidewalks; safe crossings; cycle paths; motorcycle lanes; bus lanes; segregation of different modes of traffic; median separation of high-speed traffic; and safe intersection design.

We accept that not all those features are conducive to Jamaica’s topography. However, the points on our roads that have been recognised as danger spots should receive special attention.

But even as we acknowledge the importance of those features, we share Dr Jones’ view that a vital element in reducing road deaths is getting behavioural change. That, we know, will take a long time as recklessness, disregard for the law, and a sense of invincibility are deeply ingrained in our culture.

An almost never-ending public education crusade, coupled with enforcement of the new Road Traffic Act, we believe, will go a far way in changing behaviour.