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Last week I vented some anger at a few culprits I believe bear some responsibility for the crime and carnage on our roads. Included were those who fail to enforce our laws, those who fail to hold themselves or their hirelings accountable, and those who set a poor example by being scofflaws themselves.

I promised that this week I would offer some solutions. The following were put forward by former Road Safety Council Chair Dr. Joseph Froncioni, assisted by Jennifer Attride-Stirling Ph.D and Marcelo Ramella Ph.D, who conducted a scientific study using local hospital data. They examined traffic injury records for the years 2003-2004 - the latest available to them at the time.

They looked at gender, age and other demographics, the severity of injuries and whether the individuals were locals or tourists. I will focus on locals. Their key findings were:

* An average of 5 people per day sustain injuries on our roads.

* Between 1993 and 2004, road injuries sustained by residents increased by 67%.

* Overall, the greatest risk of road injury occurs

at age 16.

* 83% of injuries were on motorbikes.

* The majority of injured residents are male.

* The average age of resident fatalities was 24.

* Nearly 75% of the fatalities had sustained major head injuries.

I support most of their recommendations, only some of which are included here.

Mandatory motorbike instruction, to international standards, as a requirement for getting a licence.

The difficulty with driver/rider training is that there's no guarantee that trained road-users will be guided more by their training than by our current road-user culture once they've got a licence. That's no reason not to impose rider training, but we should be aware of the limitation. An argument in favour of rider/driver training is that if endorsement by a certified trainer is a requirement before a licence is issued, this will be one more element of safety that won't be dependent on the perennially inadequate enforcement role of the police.

Increased police presence and police intervention.

Since the 1992 report on the Criminal Justice System in Bermuda by Stephen Tumim, Bermuda's governments and the police have bent over backwards to avoid exacerbating race and youth problems from too much negative contact between the police and, mainly, black youth. This pendulum has swung so far that now youth are indulged and even reinforced in their illegal road-use behaviour by some seemingly unwritten policy to go easy on bike-riding youth for noisy mufflers and/or speeding. Minimising negative police/youth experiences is a lofty goal; coddling law-breaking youth as a method is a recipe for disaster.

Sobriety checks at peak DUI injury times and mandatory drug/alcohol testing for anyone involved in a road crash. Increase penalties for DUI.

If such checks were routine on all roads leading out of Hamilton after 11pm on Saturday nights, for example, it could make a huge difference.

Speed cameras.

Anything that supplements the work we expect our police to be doing is going to be a help. Of course, there's an infrastructure of monitoring, tracking and follow-up that must be in place in order for speed cameras to be at all useful.

Implement international standards for 'crash helmets' and enforce proper helmet fastening.

Basic sense, although every enforcement issue has an "iffy" result.

Mandate adherence to traffic laws by government vehicles especially PTB.

Fully implement the demerit point system.

Encourage the importation of smaller and more environmentally-friendly vehicles; reduce fees and taxes on same.

In other words, the government must lead by example.

Over to you, Government Ministers. Let's get on with it.[[In-content Ad]]

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