The police in St Ann are urging motorists travelling in the parish during the party-heavy holiday weekend into Tuesday to exercise caution, paying attention to particular hotspots that have accounted for a rise in crashes, especially after festive events.
Head of the St Ann Traffic Department, Sergeant Courtney Miller, said last Friday that the cops were preparing for at least six parties in the highly traversed division, which extends to the often-technical North-South Highway, between Emancipation Day and Independence Day.
“St Ann is the party hub of Jamaica. ... We have six parties from August 1st to the 6th. We expect a lot of traffic on the main corridors. These corridors are known for serious and fatal accidents,” Miller said on Friday.
He noted that so far this year, there have been 29 deaths from 23 fatal collisions. More than 100 persons would have suffered from serious to minor injuries in those crashes, he added.
Miller said the traffic team in St Ann is extremely shortstaffed and for the holiday period, cops and additional resources are being pulled from elsewhere in the island to help maintain order and respond to emergencies in the parish.
“The accidents happen at various times of the day, but we are seeing some of them after the closure of these parties, involving individuals who were drinking, speeding, or both,” Miller told The Sunday Gleaner.
He pointed to several collisions, including five casualty cases last year and two this year, where up to 26 individuals had to be treated at the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital at one time.
“My message to these motorists is that once you use the roadway, please take every effort to adhere to the regulatory signs. Cut down on the speed and ... avoid driving under the influence of alcohol. We have already had 29 loss of lives this year and we would like to see it not pass record high.”
In most cases, Miller said the police turn up on accident scenes within 15 minutes of receiving a call from the motoring public, but admitted that there may be delays from the medical services standpoint. He said oftentimes, crash victims are taken to hospital by passers-by, which presents other problems and even deaths “because those persons are not trained, and the vehicles they are using are not equipped.
“So what they do is usually compound the issue, especially with spinal injuries. So you might observe a person as having no [visible] physical injuries, but in the mode of transportation, there are injuries,” he explained, noting the anxiety and fear that often overcome persons with the best of intentions.
Among some of the crash hotspots Miller listed in his division were the White River main road, the Ocho Rios bypass; in the vicinity of the Dunn’s River attraction, where three persons were killed in a four-vehicle collision in April this year; the Llandovery main road, where two persons were killed and 26 others hospitalised in a 2022 crash involving a Toyota Coaster bus; in Salem, primarily the Runaway Bay area; and along the Queen’s Highway leading from the parish.
Miller and Tanya Hamilton-Johnson, senior medical officer at the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, said party promoters need to remind patrons of their obligation to observe the Road Traffic Act, and to be mindful of their alcohol consumption if they intend to get behind the wheel.
In the meantime, elder driving instructor John Brown, of Brown’s Driving School, bemoaned the improper road markings and insufficient lighting on some of the roadways in the parish, which makes traversing the major thoroughfares in St Ann difficult. In some areas, he noted, there is overgrown vegetation that impairs vision.
The major cause of accidents in St Ann, according to Brown, who has been a driving instructor for 30 years, is that drivers are not exercising due care for other road users.
“You have the taxi men on the road who are only thinking of themselves and they don’t care about others. And then you have drivers who are not anticipating things on the road, and taking precautions, for example, on wet roads. So the matter of people being courteous is just not there,” he said, noting that traversing the North-South Highway in St Ann takes skills that many of the young drivers of today don’t take the time to learn.
“People are [only] driving for themselves, and as a result, they do as they like. They don’t indicate, they don’t check their mirrors, and in addition to that, attention needs to be placed on improving the roadway, from the conditions to the markings and streetlights,” he said.