Video: Police Encourage Safety Over Christmas
In an effort to ensure the holiday season is incident free, police officers will be out monitoring the roads during the holidays and traffic checks can be expected at various locations.
Superintendent Sean Field-Lament said, “This time of year is one for socialising with family, friends and colleagues at various festive events.
“Sadly, we also typically see increases in road traffic collisions and anti-social behaviour associated with alcohol. As a result the Bermuda Police Service encourages members of the public to enjoy themselves responsibly.”
Inspector Robert Cardwell said, “2013 to date has seen nine lives tragically lost on the roads, and many collisions that have resulted in serious injuries as well as thousands of dollars in vehicular damage.
“Many road deaths suffered in Bermuda are avoidable. Alcohol consumption beyond the legal limits for driving is far too frequently a contributing factor in these collisions.
“If you have consumed alcohol, the simple message is: don’t drive,” added Inspector Cardwell.
“Residents are encouraged to always lock their doors and windows when leaving home, even for a few minutes. If leaving home for an extended period of time, ask a neighbour or family member to watch the house. Displays of holiday gifts should not be visible through windows or doors,” Superintendent Field-Lament said.
In addition, officers both in high visibility uniform and plain clothes will be patrolling the City of Hamilton as well as various other locations, and the police said “any anti-social behaviour during the holiday period will not be tolerated, with officers using all lawful powers to deter and detect offenders as well as offences.”
Superintendent Sean Field-Lament’s full statement follows below:
This time of year is one for socialising with family, friends and colleagues at various festive events.
Sadly, we also typically see increases in road traffic collisions and anti-social behaviour associated with alcohol. As a result the Bermuda Police Service encourages members of the public to enjoy themselves responsibly.
Police officers will be out monitoring the roads during the holidays and traffic checks can be expected at various locations.
Officers both in high visibility uniform and plain clothes will be patrolling the City of Hamilton as well as various other locations engaging with shoppers, retailers and motorists to ensure everyone is able to enjoy the festivities in a peaceful and safe environment.
Patrons attending Christmas parties are asked to act in a responsible manner. Carefully consider your options and the consequences. If you intend on consuming alcohol – please, do not make the mistake of driving whilst impaired. Poor choices can have long term ramifications.
Residents are encouraged to always lock their doors and windows when leaving home, even for a few minutes. If leaving home for an extended period of time, ask a neighbour or family member to watch the house. Displays of holiday gifts should not be visible through windows or doors.
In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to reassure the public that any anti-social behaviour during the holiday period will not be tolerated, with officers using all lawful powers to deter and detect offenders as well as offences.
On behalf of the Bermuda Police Service, I wish everyone Season’s Greetings for a safe and enjoyable holiday period.
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Inspector Robert Cardwell’s full statement follows below:
The Bermuda Police Service wishes to take this opportunity to remind the public that use of the roads in a safe manner is the responsibility of all. The Christmas Season does not diminish this responsibility in any way.
2013 to date has seen nine lives tragically lost on the roads, and many collisions that have resulted in serious injuries as well as thousands of dollars in vehicular damage.
Many road deaths suffered in Bermuda are avoidable. Alcohol consumption beyond the legal limits for driving is far too frequently a contributing factor in these collisions.
If you have consumed alcohol, the simple message is: don’t drive.
Safe driving and responsible use of the roads is the responsibility of everyone.
If your work colleague, friend or relative has consumed alcohol, they might not be in the best mind to make the right decision. Take steps to deter them from driving or riding.
When using the roads, drive or ride defensively and not aggressively as the volume of traffic is increasing generally. In particular the roads around the City of Hamilton have become congested with higher volumes of motor and pedestrian traffic and this is highly likely to continue right up to New Year’s Eve.
Pedestrians are road users too and are also encouraged to ensure that they use the roads and crossings particularly in the City of Hamilton, safely. Pedestrians should only cross the roads on marked crossings and in doing so should be certain that traffic has seen them before stepping off the sidewalk. This will ensure that the potential for a collision with a motorist is avoided.
Similarly, motorists should approach crossings with caution and give way to pedestrians.
In our continued efforts to calm the roads, the Bermuda Police Service has put measures in place to increase our visibility on the roads. This is geared towards the prevention and deterrence of bad driving behaviour.
Additionally, officers have been tasked to continue to target offences identified in the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (S.T.E.P.) launched earlier this year. To this end the motoring public are reminded that there is zero tolerance towards the bad driving behaviours that have been selected. This includes impaired driving, dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention, speeding and use of cellular telephones whilst driving. Offenders will find themselves before the Magistrates’ Court.
By adhering to the traffic laws of Bermuda and taking steps to consciously use the roads safely it is the hope of the Bermuda Police Service that the year will end without further loss of life or serious life-long injuries being suffered.
The Bermuda Police Service wishes all a safe, peaceful and happy Christmas period.
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and there you have it folks…straight from the Horse’s mouths!
The hypocrisy of leadership in this country is sickening. The police rightly advise people not to drink and drive. CADA chairman is there for the photo-op, yet BOTH have been silent while the OBA government encourage the increase use of Alchohol!
Yesterday evening there was a motorcycle officer at the exit to par-la-ville parking lot and entrance to City Hall parking lot. Both officers were engaged in what sounded like personal conversations with civilian as I walked by both heading toward Bermudiana road, and still engaged with the same people when i returned and passed the other officer as I walked to the bus stop 15 minutes later. Neither officer was watching the road, the officer at Par-la-ville was facing the in toward the parking lot and the officer in front of the city hall parking lot could have only seen and offense (whether criminal or traffic) if it happened on the steps of city hall.
Waste of money, especially since they may be getting paid overtime for the extra hours or increase staff. Great idea to have additional police patrolling during the holiday season, however, it seems as though they need to be baby-sat to ensure they are doing their job.
Yup, saw one of them out yesterday at one of their favourite money making spots at the King St N, Church St intersection catching people doing ‘rolling stops’ as they look up Church St. Nope, didn’t get me. I did a foot dab.
Meanwhile the mayhem continues elsewhere with the dangerous driving, cellphone use, eating, drinking 3rd, lane use, line jumping at lights & running lights.
If the public would stop at Stop lights, they could move on to other things.
Stop lights what is that, all the observations I have seen is they are now considered race lights, on your mark, get set GO.
Check it out especially in Paget in Morning rush hour traffic,did you know that both lanes coming into town is one way only for traffic going toward the city, and don’t dare be coming from the east travelling west at the light that time of day because the motorist on bikes look at you as if to say get out of my way I have the right of way, and I have to be honest, I sit sometimes wishing I had the good old time Bedford dump truck and dare them to push my buttons and they would know what real steel feels like before they taste road pavement, see I just had to get that out of my system, thank God for Jesus, because a lot of you byes might have gone to see him a lot sooner then you thought.
This is were we need the cameras to be in operation to actually look at footage and book some of these fools, instead of just using the lame cameras that are there to see who is going across check points, like gun runners.
The officer correctly points out that if you drink (even just the proverbial 1 or 2) then simply do not drive, which is good common sense advice, why then is there an allowable maximum legal limit, which is actually over 25% of the level that can be fatal, and doesn’t take into consideration different body sizes and ones metabolism. A good educational experiment would be to let people get to a .08 and test their abilities to function using sobriety tests and controlled closed circuit driving challenges to let people see how badly alcohol can affect your coordination, judgement and ability. The fact remains, we currently allow people to operate vehicles legally after consuming alcohol as long as you don’t go over the level, so if you run someone over and you blow a .079 you weren’t legally impaired. Does this make sense if we truly care about one another?
“In our continued efforts to calm the roads, the Bermuda Police Service has put measures in place to increase our visibility on the roads.”
HA, HA…. Drove from west to town this morning and was overtaken by at least 20 vehicles. I didn’t see one police vehicle until I got to East Broadway… Then I see a Police Jeep making the illegal right turn (presumably heading for Prospect)….
Passed by 20 vehicles!!! You are not one of those 35k crawlers are you? You know, the ones who creep along when traffic is lightish.
No TD, I will pass them myself when safe to do so (not on corners, Somerset Bridge or even the double white lines on Harbor Road). 50k is a reasonable speed for our roads, but bikes doing 70K+ is just stupid and dangerous…
remember the day when traffic court had a line waiting outside the door to see Nataraja
“Big bucks, big bucks, big bucks”.