As 2024 comes to a close in a few hours, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has record­ed 119 road fa­tal­i­ties for this year.

Last year, there were 101 road deaths.

That rep­re­sents an 18 per cent in­crease in ca­su­al­ties.

Sta­tis­tics of road fa­tal­i­ties pro­vid­ed by the TTPS showed in 2022, 95 peo­ple lost their lives on the na­tion’s roads.

There were 75 road fa­tal­i­ties in 2021.

In 2020, dur­ing the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, 96 peo­ple were killed in ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents.

The po­lice record­ed 121 road deaths in 2019.

Garvin Si­mon, se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent of the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch urged road users to do their part to en­sure the safe­ty of them­selves, their pas­sen­gers and oth­er road users. He cau­tioned against speed­ing.

This year’s sta­tis­tics were pro­vid­ed yes­ter­day by the po­lice’s  Road Traf­fic Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor Sgt Brent Bat­son who said fre­quent ac­ci­dents and fa­tal­i­ties have had the po­lice on their toes and the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies in grief and pain.

He added, “When we have to re­spond to so many ac­ci­dents, you are ac­tu­al­ly di­min­ish­ing our an­ti-crime re­sponse.”

The com­ments from the po­lice came on the heels of hos­pi­tal work­er Kendell Cox, 34, los­ing his life af­ter crash­ing his ve­hi­cle near O’Meara Road, Ari­ma, on Sat­ur­day.

Video footage showed the crum­pled wreck of Cox’s car af­ter it struck a tree.

The tree which was up­root­ed on im­pact smashed through Cox’s car.

So far for the month of De­cem­ber, po­lice re­port­ed eight road fa­tal­i­ties which oc­curred de­spite re­peat­ed ap­peals to ex­er­cise cau­tion dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. On De­cem­ber 12, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice is­sued a re­lease urg­ing cau­tion on the road­way.

The po­lice al­so cau­tioned mo­torists to avoid speed­ing, drink­ing and dri­ving and for pedes­tri­ans to be alert while cross­ing the na­tion’s roads.

Al­so on Sat­ur­day night, a To­ba­go man was knocked down and killed in Bon Ac­cord while cross­ing the road­way.

On Fri­day, 55-year-old pro­pri­etor Mar­lon Neil Roop­nar­i­nesingh al­so died when the Toy­ota Land Cruis­er he was dri­ving in Long­denville flipped and land­ed on its side, caus­ing him to suf­fer sig­nif­i­cant in­juries.

The life of 79-year-old Sha­heed Mo­hammed was al­so cut short on Box­ing Day when the ve­hi­cle he was trav­el­ling in along the Bras­so Tabaquite Road veered off a bridge and plunged in­to a riv­er.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the dri­ver fell asleep be­hind the wheel.

Ear­li­er this month, Randy Per­sad, 44, was killed in an ac­ci­dent in Barataria.

Co-work­ers Andy Gibbs and Bren­don Fran­cois, both se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers em­ployed by Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd, died in a car crash in Mc Bean, Cou­va, on De­cem­ber 12.

An uniden­ti­fied man died in De­cem­ber af­ter his ve­hi­cle crashed in­to a con­crete pole in Gas­par­il­lo. 

In ad­di­tion to these road deaths, there were a se­ries of ac­ci­dents dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son across the coun­try.

Yes­ter­day, a Snr Supt in a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia said these trag­ic in­ci­dents con­tin­ue to bur­den T&T with un­nec­es­sary and pre­ventable loss of hu­man life.

“Dri­vers need to un­der­stand that a mo­tor ve­hi­cle is sim­i­lar to a pow­er­ful weapon, that if used ir­re­spon­si­bly, it can se­ri­ous­ly in­jure or kill the user and oth­er per­sons.”

Si­mon said this time of the year is sup­posed to be joy­ful for fam­i­lies and loved ones, not one of heartache and pain.

The se­nior of­fi­cer urged road users to do their part to en­sure the safe­ty of them­selves, their pas­sen­gers and oth­er road users by obey­ing traf­fic laws such as wear­ing their seat belts, not dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol and ex­ceed­ing the speed lim­it.

“These things go such a long way to­wards sav­ing lives and keep­ing fam­i­lies to­geth­er.”

Mean­while, Bat­son said that dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic the TTPS saw a de­cline in road deaths and se­ri­ous ac­ci­dents.

How­ev­er, the po­lice no­ticed a resur­gence of high-risk dri­ving be­tween 2023 and 2024 caus­ing the road death fig­ures to climb.

He at­trib­uted sev­er­al fac­tors to the fa­tal crash­es, such as un­safe lane chang­ing, drunk dri­ving, speed­ing and run­ning a red light.

Sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the TTPS showed be­tween 2010 and 2024 a to­tal of 1,998 peo­ple were killed in 1,763 Road Traf­fic Ac­ci­dents (RTAs).

Over these 15 years, 2010 record­ed the high­est deaths of 212.

“What we have seen post-COVID is a lot more se­ri­ous crash­es as well as fa­tal crash­es. Per­sons have to un­der­stand that their be­hav­iours and choic­es have se­ri­ous con­se­quences on the roads. Those con­se­quences lead to in­juries and fa­tal­i­ties which can be pre­vent­ed.”

Bat­son said that while the pub­lic wants to see the po­lice on the crime front, “When we have to re­spond to so many ac­ci­dents, you are ac­tu­al­ly di­min­ish­ing our an­ti-crime re­sponse.”

These ac­ci­dents, he said, al­so shut down high­ways and roads for hours caus­ing the coun­try to lose hours of pro­duc­tive time and rev­enue.

Soon, Bat­son said the TTPS will have a large sup­pres­sion op­er­a­tion for traf­fic en­force­ment.

“We know that per­sons view our pres­ence, un­for­tu­nate­ly, as a rev­enue gen­er­a­tion arm of the Gov­ern­ment. But that is not the case.”

If mo­torists obey the laws, they will not have to pay the State, he point­ed out.

The TTPS, Bat­son said, would al­so utilise new “high-speed en­force­ment de­vices” and DUI equip­ment to help de­tect drunk dri­ving.

Bat­son added that some dri­vers have been over­tak­ing un­nec­es­sar­i­ly on the roads and find­ing them­selves in sit­u­a­tions where they can­not stop, re­sult­ing in a “loss of con­trol pa­ra­me­ter.”