Drivers of Public Passenger Vehicles Implored to Exercise Greater Caution

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport, Carol Palmer, is imploring drivers of public passenger vehicles to exercise greater caution on the island’s roads.

She was addressing a retreat for transport operators hosted by Portfolio Minister, Hon. Daryl Vaz and the Transport Authority, on July 13 at the Moon Palace Hotel in Ocho Rios, St. Ann.

Mrs. Palmer emphasised that there needs to be more discipline on the roadways and respect for the safety of other road users.

“We have been struggling as a nation to have less fatalities on our roads. We cannot achieve it with the level of indiscipline that obtains. I am told, ‘but they have to make money, make the money for the owners and themselves’, but let us stop and think,” she said.

“We need to become a society that is civilised because indiscipline means a lack of civilisation. The fact that we do not respect the safety of ourselves and the safety of other road users is a lack of civilisation, and we must get to the rule of law in our society,” Mrs. Palmer implored.

She also pointed out that the safety of the nation’s children while on the road has been an issue due to reckless driving by drivers of public passenger vehicles.

“I think of our children, and I have seen too many accidents that result in the deaths of the children before they reach anywhere in life because of the carelessness of public passenger transport [road] users. There are other users of the road who do it, but my audience today are public passenger [operators],” Mrs. Palmer said.

For his part, newly installed Chairman of the Transport Authority Board, Owen Ellington, also encouraged safety on the island’s roads.

Mr. Ellington said that transport operators are very important to the social and economic interest of the island, As such, the business of transportation should be taken seriously, as the commuting public expects and deserves an improved quality of service in the public transport sector.