Traffic Conference Set for August 14

The second All Island Traffic Conference is to be staged on August 14, in an attempt to examine the issues affecting the Traffic Division and strategise best practices, to ultimately reduce the carnage on the roadways.
This was noted by Head of the Traffic Division, Superintendent Fred Hibbert, in an interview with JIS News.
“The All Island Traffic Conference is to bring all the different contending parties together, so that we understand where we are going, so that we all will be focusing in one direction,” Mr. Hibbert informed, noting that a number of stakeholder groups would be in attendance.
“All the different Police officers from Traffic and Highway patrols, members from the National Road Safety Council, National Works Agency, Traffic Authority and other parties with whom we collaborate, will be in attendance, because we are not alone, we just happen to be the enforcers,” he added.
According to the traffic Chief, the conference would cater to approximately 60 to 70 persons and is tentatively set for the Elletson Road Sports Complex in Kingston. He also pointed out that the conference would take the form of presentations and discussions from experts in the field and would highlight different topics.
“Some of the issues we are looking at include – how breath analyzing can make the system more efficient, how fatal accidents can be dealt with more professionally, and the National Works Agency will be telling you some of the problems they are encountering and how we can work better to make the functions more efficient,” Mr. Hibbert said.
“The whole idea is to work jointly with the National Road Safety Council and other stakeholder groups. The idea is to have less people being killed on our roads and by extension less collisions, which will save the country .we will have more money to spend on education, the health sector and other areas in society,” he pointed out.
Mr. Hibbert said he is confident that the conference will boost professionalism among officers.
“You will have people leaving with more knowledge at their disposal, greater level of professionalism, because the whole idea is to improve professionalism among all stakeholders involved,” he argued.
The Traffic Division addresses issues related to road safety and conducts various accident investigations, among other functions.
“Our mandate deals with everything that relates to road safety – the co-ordination of traffic activities right across the country, the analysis of accident reports and records, and technical accident investigations. Our duties stretch from one extreme to the other,” Mr. Hibbert explained.