Below 240 still the target - NRSC eager for revised Road Traffic Act

Executive director of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), Paula Fletcher, says the NRSC will maintain its momentum from 2013 in pushing for the implementation of the new Road Traffic Act. There will also be a stronger appeal for the number of road fatalities in Jamaica to be reduced to under 240, a target that was missed last year but is hoped will be achieved in 2014.

Last year, minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Housing, Dr Morais Guy, stated that the revised road traffic legislation would provide harsher penalties for breaches of particular road-safety rules.

The amended act will ensure that motorists conform to a high road-safety standard. Among the issues it will deal with are the use of mobile phones while driving, the suspension of licences resulting from points deductions, tyre thread depth conforming to international standards, and the use of in-car devices such as DVDs.

"The one thing that we're hoping to achieve is the passage of the new Road Traffic Act," Fletcher said, though noting that "... it went through
last year, but Minister Davies has said that for the fiscal year it
should be in place". Fletcher is confident that the legislation will
help the organisation achieve its goals, saying "it has in a lot of
components that would really make changes to how we actually achieve
some of the targets we have set".

Crucial
objective

Ensuring that the number of dangerous
motorists on the roads is reduced is a crucial objective. "One very
important one for us is that the Island Traffic Authority (ITA) can
actively begin to remove or suspend licences once a threshold is
reached. We were hoping that this would have been passed long ago,"
Fletcher said.

She also pointed out that Jamaica is
lagging badly in having the bill implemented, as it has been nearly a
decade in coming.

Last year, the NRSC launched its
road-safety campaign 'Below 240: Jamaica Can Do It', resetting Jamaica's
annual road fatalities target after the save 300 Lives campaign was
finally successful in 2012. However, that did not come to fruition and
the figure stood at 305 by year-end.

It does not mean
that the NRSC is relinquishing the target. "This is the programme we're
still working with. We really need, as a nation, to go below 240. That's
a lot of people to die in a small country such as ours," Fletcher
pointed
out.