Slight reduction in road deaths

The Director of the Road Safety Unit in the Ministry of Transport, Kanute Hare, is crediting road users for the current reduction in the number of road fatalities since the start of the year, when compared with the same period last year.

As of yesterday, 200 persons have been killed in road accidents, which represents a two percent decrease in fatalities when compared with the corresponding period last year.

Hare said this reduction came as a result of the efforts of road users.

"I would like to give the credit to the Jamaican people for working with the programme because we have been beseeching them to keep themselves safe on the road," Hare said.

He also noted that Operation Zero Tolerance, by the Transport Ministry has been playing a commendable role in reducing fatalities on the roads.

defective vehicles

"There is a massive operation taking place across the country with the police force to ensure that defective vehicles are removed from the traffic environment," Hare said.

He, however, noted that there are still some issues that needed to be tackled.

"For example, right now, we need to see motorcyclists wearing their helmets and operating properly on the network. When you look at it, there are no shops that sell brains and heads, so motorcyclists need to understand that they need to protect themselves," he said.

Motorcyclists continue to top the statistics of road users who are killed in fatal crashes, at 27 percent. Pedestrians account for 19 percent of road fatalities.

Westmoreland and St Ann continue to be the parishes with the highest number of road fatalities, with 34 and 21 causalities respectively so far.

Hare is challenging Jamaicans to make road safety their priority so that the number of fatalities can be kept under 300 for the year.