KINGSTON, Jamaica — Vice chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) Dr Lucien Jones says the council has seen a reduction in the number of deaths on Jamaica’s roads since its establishment 25 years ago.

Jones was speaking at a midyear press briefing where he, however, highlighted that challenges remain and new approaches will be adopted for greater road safety.

According to the vice chairman, the number of road fatalities stood at over 400 people annually in 1993, however, that number fell to a low of 260 —a ratio of 9.22 road deaths per 100,000 of the population by 2012.

“Since then, numbers have moved up to exceed 300. Nevertheless, last year saw much improvement, with 321 deaths compared to 379 in 2016. So far this year there have been a total of 180 fatalities recorded, eleven fewer than the 191 fatalities recorded up to this time last year,” Jones said.

The NRSC vice-chairman cited several contributing factors over the years, emphasising the importance of close collaboration among several agencies and individuals, “who continue working towards the national target of below 300 deaths annually.”

He stressed, however, that exhorting people to drive more slowly and safely was not the only strategy.

Safe and sustainable transportation systems, Jones asserted, were “the new context in which we need to move forward for the second half of 2018 and beyond.”

“Safe systems demand that we import safer motor vehicles, construct safer roads, legislate safer speeds and encourage safer road use in order to prevent injuries. Safe systems also include improvements to the ticketing system and policing, and the introduction of speed cameras for the traffic police,” he said.

Jones also called on the media to stop referring to incidents on the roads as ‘accidents’ but instead as ‘crashes’ in order to “bring across the importance of people taking responsibility for their bad behavior on the nation’s roads.”