Derek Achong

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has record­ed a 20 per cent de­crease in road fa­tal­i­ties for this year. How­ev­er, de­spite the marked re­duc­tion, there has been an 18 per cent in­crease in pedes­tri­an road fa­tal­i­ties as com­pared to last year. So said po­lice pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer act­ing In­sp Wayne Mys­tar while ad­dress­ing the week­ly press brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Re­fer­ring to sta­tis­tics from the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch, Mys­tar said there had been 110 road fa­tal­i­ties this year as com­pared to 137 for the same pe­ri­od last year. There was a to­tal of 193 road fa­tal­i­ties record­ed for last year. "Over the past two weeks pedes­tri­an deaths have ac­count­ed for 67 per cent of the class of road users killed on the na­tion's road­ways," Mys­tar said. He said the Beetham High­way was the most dan­ger­ous road for pedes­tri­ans, with 36 per cent of high­way pedes­tri­an deaths oc­cur­ring there this year.

The Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way is sec­ond with 22 per cent and is close­ly fol­lowed by the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, which ac­count­ed for 21 per cent of pedes­tri­an road traf­fic deaths. Mys­tar de­scribed the sta­tis­tics as dis­turb­ing and ap­pealed to pedes­tri­ans to utilise walkovers and des­ig­nat­ed cross­ings. "Re­mem­ber, if you have to run across the road with ap­proach­ing traf­fic, it means you are tak­ing a chance with your life," he said.

He said the po­lice would be em­bark­ing on a road safe­ty cam­paign which would be­gin with a pedes­tri­an safe­ty aware­ness ses­sion with res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens and Sea Lots. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of road safe­ty NGO Ar­rive Alive, Sharon In­gle­field, echoed what Mys­tar had said on avoid­ing un­nec­es­sary risks. In­gle­field said in May her or­gan­i­sa­tion put road safe­ty mes­sages on bill­boards at­tached to walkovers across T&T.

She said pedes­tri­ans who used ma­jor road­ways at night should wear re­flec­tive cloth­ing and avoid wear­ing dark colours. "Dri­vers should al­so ob­serve the speed lim­it, be­cause pedes­tri­ans do not re­al­ly have a chance if a ve­hi­cle is trav­el­ling over 25 km," In­gle­field said.