NRSC Renews Call for Caution on the Roads

The National Road Safety Council (NRSC) has renewed its call for Jamaicans to exercise greater care and caution on the roads, to stem the loss of lives and injuries.
The appeal comes on the heels of Monday night’s accident on the Llandovery main road, St. Ann, in which four people were killed and 34 others seriously injured, when two public passenger Toyota Hiace buses crashed head-on.
“There are no winners, as a result of speeding and reckless driving. We must stop the senseless waste of the lives of our people and the untold hardships to our families, by behaving more responsibly on the roadways,” said Vice Chairman/Convenor, NRSC, Dr. Lucien Jones.
He stressed that the Christmas festivities should not encourage road users to abandon road safety measures.
As of Wednesday (December 2), the island fell short of its goal of the 300LIVES Project of the NRSC. That project, launched in October 2008, promoted a reduction in the number of fatalities on the roads to less than 300 per year. However, Monday’s fatalities increased the total to 301, compared with 303 for the same period last year.
The 300LIVES Project also mobilises the private and public sectors through public education, improvements to legislation, enforcement and driver training, to reduce the social and economic burden of traffic accidents.
In the meantime, the NRSC is hailing the recent staging of the First Global Ministerial Road Safety Conference in Moscow, in November, as a necessary step in mobilising public support, on the local and international scenes, against the road crash pandemic which is claiming over 1.3million lives and in excess of 50 million injuries each year.
Dr. Jones, a member of the Jamaican delegation, pointed out that the group used the conference to add its voice to the call for the United Nations to declare a decade of Road Safety, by the adoption of the Moscow Declaration.
Minister of Transport and Works Hon. Mike Henry, who headed the Jamaican delegation to the Conference, participated in a panel discussion which highlighted the issue.