As school reopens next week, motorists can expect to see a higher presence of police officers on the nation's road ways.
This as the current road fatality count for the year stands at 82; a 26 per cent increase from last year's figure of 65 for the same period. The increased presence of the officers is part of a new "aggressive high-visibility and traffic enforcement campaign" by the Traffic and Highway Patrol Branch of the TTPS.
"From next week the TTPS Traffic and Highway Patrol Branch under the command of Snr. Supt. Sharon Gomez-Cooper will be commencing an aggressive high-visibility and traffic enforcement campaign with deployment of some of the new motorcycles, which were graciously provided to us by the People’s Republic of China.," Ag Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mobile Joanne Archie said at the TTPS weekly media briefing.
"This together with other initiatives soon coming on stream, aim to raise the level of driver compliance with road traffic laws and improve safety on the roadways."
Already for 2019, the TTPS has distributed some 42,710 traffic tickets; of these 16,435 were for exceeding the legal speed limits and 1,589 drivers were arrested for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) offences.
"This tells us that far too many drivers are still taking unnecessary chances on the roads and placing both themselves and the lives of other road users at risk," Archie said.
Commenting on this increase in road fatalities, TTPS Road Safety Coordinator Brent Batson said that the details in the incident reports "highlight the preventable nature of many of these collisions with speed being the major causation factor."
He even cautioned drivers of commercial vehicles such as pickup trucks to exercise special caution when driving their vehicles while unladden, as he explained, were unstable without a load.
He also appealed for motorists to ensure proper safety is exercised such as wearing seatbelts to help save lives as "research has shown persons ejected from vehicles in collisions have an 80% chance of death."
Responding to questions from Guardian Media via Whatsapp, president of Arrive Alive, Sharon Inglefield said there are various reasons for the increase in the serious collisions causing injuries and fatalities.
"We have many more vehicles on the roads with many more drivers who haven’t received proper education and training in speed management; stopping distance; hazard perception; and all the other attributes that make up a skilled driver," she said.
She also said that the absence of the rapid arrests of drivers who have caused serious collisions and injuries continue to drive vehicles with impunity could contribute to road fatalities as, she said, "arrests are an effective deterrent to save lives."
But she believes the police's new capaign would be a very good initiative and "hopefully, all 200 skilled TTPS motorcyclists will be on our nation’s roads by Carnival. This will certainly enhance our law enforcement arm and we appeal to these officers to apply the law without fear and favour."
She also hoped that the Demerit Point system wouldl be proclaimed in to law this year and "therefore many of our reckless drivers will need to change their behaviour or they will soon lose their privilege to drive."
