Police Continue Work On Road Safety Strategy
To date in 2016, there have been 232 damage only collisions, 174 slight injury collisions, 19 serious injury collisions and 4 road traffic related fatalities, officer in charge of the Roads Policing Unit Inspector Robert Cardwell said today.
Inspector Cardwell said, “The Bermuda Police Service continues to progress its Road Safety Strategy as one of it priority areas of policing with some encouraging results when collisions are considered in totality as a performance indicator. However, this is less encouraging when collisions are broken down into categories and are considered in context.
“To date in 2016 there have been 232 damage only collisions, 174 slight injury collisions, 19 serious injury collisions and 4 road traffic related fatalities.
“Collision investigations continue to show that speed, inattention, impairment and various combinations of these factors are the main causes and frequent factors of collisions in all categories.
“Serious injury collisions are classified as such when the injury requires admittance to the ICU or is an injury that has resulted in the loss of a limb, paralysis, head or neck injury, internal injury and any other injury that will require an extensive period of rehabilitation.
“The collisions occurring on the roads in Bermuda are impacting on the community in many ways and this is a social concern. The negative impacts suffered where life has been lost is on the family through the grief that this causes, but also in the loss of earnings and contribution to the family dynamic and hardship in some cases follow.
“In addition serious injury, slight injury and damage collision categories impacts on the cost of motor insurance and the manner of driving or riding in most cases that have resulted in these collisions impacts on feelings of fear suffered by other road users.
“We continue to encourage the motoring public to slow down, give your driving and riding your full attention and whenever socializing have a plan to get home reducing the risk you bring on yourself but also other road users,” Inspector Cardwell concluded.
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Category: Accidents and fires, All, News
You mean like the last time you had a Hashtag campaign and drove a couple of police cars off South Shore Road the next day? You might want to try leading by example this time.
Next time you get into an accident you should blame it on the bad example set by the police lol..
Dumba**
From the BHB – figures from 2009 to 2014: “In five years, nearly $17 million in Emergency and Urgent care has been provided to road traffic accident (RTA) patients.”
Yet what happens?
So I see so much dumb s@#t on the road everyday and this makes me wonder why we (the taxpayers) are supposed to foot the bill for a police force who has to enforce what should be common sense. Can we write tickets for stupidity? No joke at least once a day I have to hit breaks or swerve to avoid someone from having a bad accident.
As a newbie on the island , I am amazed at the reckless driving. I’m surprised the stats aren’t more. In the uk now if you get caught in the first year after your test you lose your license. The scooter drivers need to take a proper test on the roads and not in a car park and there needs to be regular spot checks for dangerous driving. And ban any use of mobile phones. It’s really not that complicated. You are all such lovely.people and then to many get on a scooter and drive like lunatics with zero consideration for life… rant over xx .
There is a ban on cell phones being used while driving, however it is not enforced.
I know a few people that have been caught and prosecuted (rightfully) for cell phone use while driving so the law IS enforced .
The problem is that a very large percentage choose to ignore the law itself and the police can’t be everywhere all at once.
The gov’t should consider raising the scooter driving age to 17 and lowering the car licensing age to 17. Give parents and teens a choice. Nowadays, there’s too much traffic on the roads, the bikes are much faster and there’s too much pressure on our young people to get on a bike at 16. We also need more police presence on the roads, road traffic cameras and heftier fines to deter dangerous driving.
If these kids rode their bikes carefully and responsibly, everyone would be a lot safer. Some kids actually drive with the traffic, while other zoom past every car, passing on blind corners, not even thinking about slowing down when you know there is a hidden side road where someone could pull out at any time..
Of course you see every day a parent riding around with the child on the front/back, and the parent is passing every car they see, weaving in and out of traffic. The kid experiences that driving mentality first-hand, and of course when they get their licence they are going to drive the same way!! They learned by example..
Completely agree with you on this . How many times have we heard someone who’s been caught out respond by saying ‘well my deddy did it and he never got in trouble ‘ ?
Getting away with poor behavior and lawlessness is so ingrained in some people here that they seem to not even know what is right and what isn’t. It’s just ‘normal’ behavior to them .
Also , let’s remember that bad and out of control bike operators eventually graduate to 4 wheeled vehicles . A huge number of car/truck operators here are no better than the bikers they complain about .
I have seen the practice of motorcyclists create a third lane and move to the front of a line of four wheeled vehicles that are waiting at a red ligh t, in many cases these motorcyclists are waiting pass the white stop line painted on the road as a safety measure. This particular bad habit has been going on for a few years and the police service seems to ignore it. In one day an easy 200 tickets could be issued. The bus terminal needs a stronger presence of police officers, as well Queen and Church streets.
Between that and drivers not stopping at a pedestrian crossing, the police indeed could easily issue a couple hundred tickets. Of course the public outrage would be immense, but boy what an interesting day that would be.
That’s pretty funny – considering my pregnant wife and I were driving behind a police 4×4 on Monday night which was swerving all over the place, missing the railings on north shore by inches…..soon realized the driver was texting on his phone once he held it up in front of him whilst taking a bend…..we should be given the power to pull police over in events like this!!
You do have the power to note the vehicle’s plate number, time & location and report it.
I have conducted an experiment over the last two weeks. I have driven from Somerset to Smiths and vice versa twice a day, six days a week. That’s 24 trips. I have randomly traveled on Middle, South, Harbour and North Shore Roads and a various different times.
For the past two weeks I purposely maintained a steady 50 kph for all 24 trips. Here are the results:
1.) I passed Police vehicles exactly twice. They were driving in the opposite direction once and parked on the side of the road for the second time. Neither time did they notice that I was driving 15 kph over the speed limit.
2.) At 50 kph, vehicles of all kinds were quickly coming up behind me, overtaking me and disappearing from my view as if I were standing still. And people of all ages, colours and nationalities were driving these vehicles. Also, this happened every time. At every and any time of day or night.
So instead of the police setting up speed traps on east broadway during rush hour traffic and ticketing the hard working, good citizens of Bermuda for driving just over 50 k, which we all know they do, why don’t you put those same police out there on the highways at all different times and catch the people who are REALLY tearing up these roads like they are their own personal race courses?
And how about raising the speed limit from that absolutely ridiculous and unrealistic 35 k to 50 k and then enforce it! The excuse that people will drive faster if you raise the speed limit is just stupid. People drive faster NOW! Just actually get your roads policing unit to do some work!
Yes, my fellow Bermudians do need to slow it down a bit as well.
1. I call bulls**t that you actually conducted this ‘experiment’ lol
2. FYI, the police don’t care if you’re driving 50kph, because it’s actually an acceptable speed here.
3. Did you ever consider that the police you expected to see on the roads were actually called to a job? ie: attending an accident, medical emergency, etc etc etc…
I find it hilarious that you threw in that last line, as if it was just an insignificant side note.
THE LUNATIC DRIVERS ARE THE PROBLEM, NOT THE POLICE
You can call what you like. Those were my travels to and from work 6 days a week. My schedule has me working different hours daily, not 9-5 and I switch up my routes usually due to road works or if I just feel like different scenery. So yes, I most certainly did conduct this experiment and everything I wrote is true.
The ‘Lunatic’ drivers are NOT going to change. When people get away with things, they escalate! They don’t go backwards. So it IS up to the police to do something more or different.
I’m sorry folks, you can all complain until you are blue in the face. Until we as Bermudians stop driving/riding like idiots then Accidents will keep happening. Reality check…police budget is decreasing equals less officers on the street. Don’t be ignorant to the reality of it. Look around your own homes and tell your brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, sons, daughters etc to stop riding like they own the roads. Always better to arrive late than dead. When you look in that mirror before you leave home ask yourself how your family is going to feel at your funeral because you chose to drive like an idiot. End of story. Sorry to truth speak.