NRSC presses Jamaica to stay locked on safe systems after 13 die on roads

The National Road Safety Council (NRSC) is urging the country not to ease off any part of the safe systems approach to road safety. The appeal comes after 13 people died on Jamaican roads over a single weekend.

Those fatalities were recorded in separate incidents from Friday through Sunday. Among them was a crash at Bogue Gate in Falmouth, Trelawny, that claimed seven lives. Three people also died in Little London, Westmoreland; one person was killed on Baptist Road in St. Elizabeth; and two died in a crash on the Folly to Anchovy main road in Portland.

As of July 21, 179 people have died in 154 fatal crashes. That tally is 17 per cent lower than for the same stretch of last year. Even so, NRSC Vice-Chairman Dr. Lucien Jones says those improvements must be guarded carefully.

Dr. Jones notes that a large share of the dead are of working age, which, he says, heightens the need to intensify road safety work across the island.