BRSA president wants fresh approach to reduce road accidents

President of the Barbados Road Safety Association Roland Lowe on Tuesday called for a new approach to help reduce the high level of road accidents.

He proposed a fresh strategy to encourage better road habits and appealed to drivers to adopt a new mindset.

“Throughout the year we have been pushing the message of driver education and we are also looking for a mindset change when it comes to the way people approach driving and using the roads.”

His call comes among concerns expressed by Commissioner of Police Richard Boyce that road fatalities this year doubled those in 2022.

During his Christmas address, Commissioner Boyce said: “An issue that has caused us concern is the number of traffic accidents which caused fatalities. To date, there are 17 fatalities as compared to 8 for 2022. This almost matches the number of persons who died from violent crime this year.”

Lowe agreed that the issue was concerning and stressed the need for greater public education.

“When the association came back on the scene [this year] in a more noticeable way, the first thing that we had to deal with was a road fatality. The trend seems to have continued throughout the year, which is a worrying situation.”

He added that all stakeholders should be involved in the effort to reduce accidents.

“We need the buy-in and the cooperation and collaboration of all the relevant parties who are concerned, whether it be the insurance companies, the associations relative to the public service vehicles and government. We need to have a conversation with all the stakeholders so that we can work together to reduce the occurrence of accidents on the road, and bring the number of fatalities down,” he said.