Motorists urged not to forget road safety amid festivities

With 16 people having died in vehicular accidents so far for 2021, the Barbados Road Safety Association (BRSA) is appealing to residents gearing up to enjoy the Christmas festivities to be careful on the island’s roads to prevent that number from rising.

BRSA president Sharmane Roland-Bowen on Wednesday pleaded with road users to drive and ride with due care and attention, as traffic increases during the holiday season.

“We really want to appeal to everyone not to let your guard down. This is Christmas, we know people are going to say they didn’t see their family last Christmas, they didn’t do this, and we know we have a slackening of the restrictions and you might even find more people on the road than you did last year,” she said at a press conference via Zoom.

“Do not become complacent, do not let your guard down. We don’t want any fatalities, we don’t want the accidents, keep the accidents down. Just stay off the roads. It is not a good place to be because it is not safe and we keep saying that.”

Noting that breathalyzer testing is in place in Barbados, Roland-Bowen also called on motorists not to use the roads while under the influence of alcohol or when feeling tired.

“If you are overworked do not allow yourself to be in a situation where you put yourself at risk,” she said.

Vice President of the BRSA, John Herbert, who also attended the press briefing, said that while there have been two more road fatalities recorded this year so far than in all of 2020, he hoped to see 2021 end without that number increasing.

He further expressed the hope that Government will roll out plans in 2022 to mitigate the serious problem of uninsured vehicles causing a major headache for other motorists and insurance companies.

Herbert, who works in the insurance sector, said even when the country was on lockdown earlier this year and in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and there should have been less traffic on the roads, too many accidents were recorded.

“There is improper overtaking, improper use of the roundabout, I mean almost every illegal manoeuvre that you can think of occurs on the roads of Barbados, and we in the Barbados Road Safety Association are appealing to our motorists just to pay attention to what they are doing and to slow down,” he said.

“I know a lot of people’s attention are drawn to COVID and the [number] of deaths due to COVID and things like road safety can be lost in the background with all the other noise and all the other attractions that are going on, but at this time of the year especially, and as we wind down the year and we go into 2022, we do not want our voice to be lost,” Herbert added. (AH)