Cedric Stephens | Road user’s guide to good driving behaviour needed

Today’s piece originated from ideas that were expressed last Thursday by another columnist, Jaristotle, in an article titled ‘Stop this madness, this taxi-mania’.

Jaristotle is a pseudonym. I suspect that it is a combination of the two-letter abbreviation for Jamaica, Ja, and Aristotle. The latter is the name of an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist.

My curiosity about the pen name choice led me to find out more. Encyclopaedia Britannica calls Aristotle “one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history”.

My expectation was that Jaristotle’s Jottings would have taken a very deep dive into an issue that many persons like to talk about, analysed lots of data, and offered solutions to a complex set of problems of which taxis and PPVs are only one part. The article was anything but that.

Aristotle’s intellectual range was vast – from b to z – literally. It covered most of the sciences and many of the arts. It included biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, metaphysics, rhetoric, philosophy, poetics, political theory, psychology and zoology.

I re-read Jaristotle’s Jottings afterwards. I felt short-changed. The opinions that the columnist conveyed were informed by none of the disciplines associated with the philosopher’s name. The article, like the letter of the day – ‘Jamaican road terrorists’ – offered no new insights or strategies to stop the mayhem that occurs daily and affects the society. It was the same old same old.

I am nevertheless in full agreement with Jaristotle’s comments about the scandalously low limits in the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act. I aired a similar opinion, accompanied by data, in an article on April 1, 2018: ‘Motor insurance law short-changing victims’. It had a half-page photograph of Transport Minister Robert Montague.

Increasing the limits should be no big thing. The Act says in Subsection (6) of Section 5: “The minister may, by order, subject to negative resolution, amend subsections (2), (3) and (4) of this section and Subsection (1) of Section 7 (the parts in which the limits are stated) so as to change the amounts specified therein.”

This is the same minister who has launched what Nationwide Newsnet calls a “public transport liberalisation project”. Why the exclusion?

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, according to news service CMC, director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Alejandro Werner, commenting on how Jamaica successfully concluded its IMF-supported programme, said “there were lessons to be learnt from that experience”. He also said that “Jamaica’s steadfast reform implementation resulted in many milestones, including reducing public debt by 50 percentage points of GDP since 2013 to below 95 per cent of GDP and hitting an all-time low unemployment rate of 7.8 per cent”.

A key element for the programme’s success, the IMF official said, “was the establishment of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee, EPOC, which saw ownership from the local society, including different stakeholders and political parties, as well as consistent communication to keep the public informed and carry the reforms through”.

Can what I call the IMF model that was used to bring stability in the economy be used to halt the madness on the roads, instil discipline, and induce a change in behaviour on the part of all road users over a three-year period? If our rulers have some master plan to do this, why isn’t it being communicated to citizens?

On the other hand, is it fair to label all taxi operators and drivers of other public passenger vehicles as road terrorists? Is there any data to support the argument that these persons are more frequently involved in accidents than other drivers? Are the observations about road their behaviour reflective of the total population of taxi and PPV drivers or just a few bad apples?

Why is it that hard-nosed insurance company bosses who are in business to make money are still insuring PPVs? Are the methods by which these drivers are paid incentivising them to drive recklessly and dangerously?

The preceding is a sample of some of the questions I expected Jaristotle to answer.

The various agreements between the IMF and our Government set out in painstaking detail quantitative and qualitative targets, laws that should be passed and or amended, and other activities that should be accomplished and within specific time frames.

IMF staff met with relevant government officials at agreed intervals to monitor progress while the local group EPOC did the same. Could a similar model be constructed – without the IMF – to develop solutions for the madness that is occurring daily on our roads? I would be very interested to read Jaristotle’s responses to these questions.

- Cedric E. Stephens provides independent information and advice about the management of risks and insurance. For free information or counsel, write to aegis@flowja.com.