Pickersgill Presents Draft Of National Road Safety Policy

Minister of Transport and Works, Robert Pickersgill today presented a draft of the National Road Safety Policy, which is aimed at placing road safety issues as high priority within the country.
Addressing members of the media at a news conference at the Ministry in Kingston, Minister Pickersgill said the policy would be the basis on which the vision for a safe traffic environment that was in accordance with internationally accepted standards, was transformed into reality.
The policy, he said, would also help to guide and co-ordinate the duties of relevant ministries and organizations to efficiently utilize scarce resources and avoid duplication of their functions, as they strived to achieve the important objective of national road safety.
Mr. Pickersgill explained that the policy would pursue two fundamental goals. These include a qualitative goal, which is aimed at reducing the occurrence and severity of road accidents in an efficient and professional manner; and a quantitative goal, that would seek to reduce the occurrence of accidents, as well as the rate of mortality and morbidity by at least 25 per cent over the next five years.
The Minister informed that the policy contained a comprehensive mix of approaches, designed to reduce and prevent accidents. These, he said would be organized in five basic categories – Engineering and Traffic Environment; Education and Information; Enforcement and Legislation; Emergency Response; and Evaluation and other comprehensive actions.
The Minister invited members of the public to make submissions on the draft Policy for consideration, by Friday, February 27.
“Comments will thereafter be evaluated and any amendments made to the draft policy will be sent to Cabinet for approval. The Cabinet’s permission will also be sought, to have the draft policy tabled in Parliament as a White Paper,” he said.
Mr. Pickersgill emphasised that the Government was committed to the safety of “our citizens and in particular our children and the elderly”. “The Ministry of Transport and Works, along with other agencies, have been and will indeed continue to work diligently to make our people more aware and our roads safer,” he added.