(Jamaica Observer) Director of the Road Safety Unit (RSU) in the Ministry of Transport and Mining, Kenute Hare is lamenting that, since the start of the year, 25 people have lost their lives on the nation’s roads up to yesterday.
“We don’t gone 25 days in the year yet and 25 people dead already. The writing is on the wall; just as it is in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the writing is on the wall. We need to shape up!” Hare declared.
He expressed fear that if motorists don’t take heed the number of road fatalities this year will surpass last year’s.
“Four hundred and thirty-seven people died [on the roads] last year; it can be worse this year if we don’t take heed,” the RSU director cautioned.
Four men from Portland, including two brothers, died from multiple injuries they received when the car in which they were travelling slammed into the side of a bus on the north coast highway here, on Sunday.
A woman, who was reportedly being transported to Sangster International Airport to board a return flight to Canada, received serious injuries and has been transferred to Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay from Falmouth Public General Hospital, where she was initially admitted following the mid-morning crash.
The deceased, all from Port Antonio, have been identified as brothers Omroy and Omar Russell; Dayton McLeary, 24; and Everton James, 22.
Hare expressed that the crash resulted from carelessness.
“What took place out at the main road in Trelawny yesterday (Sunday) highlights how indiscipline motorists are. That crash was rooted and consecrated in wanton, deliberate, calculated indiscipline. The road is wet, [yet] people decide that they are going to speed, they going to overtake; they lose control, crash into a bus that even the bus driver was trying to take the soft shoulder and the car come over there and clap the bus,” Hare said.
He pondered why the occupants of the Nissan March motor car did not signal to the driver to slow down.
“There were five people in that car, I want to know if nobody in the vehicle couldn’t say, ‘Cool it.’ So everybody into the slackness? All five people aboard the car into the slackness? And that crash is a needless death; everybody in that car died before their time. Psalms chapter 90 says three score and 10, and you can get extra,” he argued.
The RSU director advised that individuals should avoid speeding to get to their destination.=
“Rain is falling [and] you want to go to the airport? Give yourself adequate time to go to your destination. The airport say you must reach there three hours before [departure] — give yourself adequate time,” he stressed.