Reynolds

Motor-vehicle passengers will be targeted and branded as 'co-drivers' as the Road Safety Unit launches its newest public-education campaign. At the same time, the police said it would be clamping down on law-breaking motorists.

This comes as road fatalities have increased by 85 per cent during the first two weeks of January, when compared with the same period last year.

Julian Thompson, education and information officer at the unit, told The Gleaner Tuesday that passengers were as essential as drivers in ensuring that road rules are upheld.

"(There will be) a new mindset to the motoring public, a new category of road users - co-drivers - whether you are at front or back seat," he said.

Thompson said passengers must be aware of road rules because they play a key role in enforcing safety procedures.

The campaign, currently in its developmental stage, would be launched in February, he added.

Upholding road rules

The National Road Safety Council, in a release issued at the weekend, stated that with 13 road traffic deaths as at last Saturday, it would be working this year to promote road safety and reduce the number of crashes.

The council said the death of seven people from three crashes in St Eliza-beth was of concern, since the southwestern parish historically had a relatively lower incidence of traffic fatalities.

Superintendent Claude Reynolds, who heads the Traffic Division, said many strategies were developed to nab road offenders.

Breathalysers and Intoxilyzers introduced last month will play a major role in catching errant motorists.

"We have developed a number of strategies for this year, continuing the zero-tolerance approach to road traffic offences," said Reynolds.

A strategy that may bear fruit in decreasing road fatalities, said Reynolds, was educating secondary-level students in defensive driving.

"We are targeting the teenagers in school because they are tomorrow's drivers," said the traffic superintendent.

Other strategies being executed by the police are increasing the number of police personnel on the roads, intensifying covert and overt operations and continuing to work with the Island Traffic Authority to remove defective vehicles from the streets.

shelly-ann.thompson@gleanerjm.com

Road casualties