EDITORIAL: Road safety key this Christmas

This is the time of year where all persons using our roads and highways need to be reminded to exercise extra care and caution, during this hectic Yuletide season.

This is the time of year when the roads will be backed up, as the busy Christmas period gets under way. During this time, Barbadians seemingly throw any defensive driving skills they have learnt to the wind, as they dash to and fro, to do their Christmas shopping. There is often lots of room for a lot of mishaps, as persons rush here and there.

However, let it be said that this is not the time of year to be absentminded. We all know the damage distracted driving can cause. Great focus must be placed as well on the use of mobile phones whilst driving, as persons often whip out their cellphones to take or make a last-minute call, forgetting that there is a law in place that forbids the use of cellphones whilst driving without the requisite Bluetooth device.

Your thoughts may be elsewhere whilst on that cellphone and before you know it, that car bumper in front of you may inch closer and closer and before you know it, you have connected with the automobile in front of you, startling you back into reality. It just goes to show that we must be totally focused on the road at all times, because accidents can happen in a split second.

Designate a driver

For those who love their Christmas alcoholic beverages, they should be reminded to designate a driver to get them to and fro from events. For those who have to work late or who have to work long hours, they should also do the same or get some rest before they get behind that automobile wheel.

For those pedestrians engaged in the Christmas hustle and bustle, they too need to be careful and adhere to the traffic signs and signals and use sidewalks where possible. For motorcyclists and bicyclists, they also need to exercise due care and attention and refrain from weaving in and out of traffic in a carefree fashion.

Motorists also need to be reminded to drive at a moderate speed, use signals to indicate their actions and refrain from taking chances speeding or overtaking when it is unsafe.

Be more observant

If you need a gentle reminder about why road safety is key at Christmas, just be a bit more observant as you go about your business, by looking for those white markers which the Barbados Road Safety Association has placed in the form of crosses, at key points and locations where there have been road fatalities across the island.

These markers do serve as a critical reminder for us all to take it easy on the road, reduce speeding and drive with due care and attention. These markers are hard to ignore because once you see them, you call to mind whatever accident or incident that took place in or around that spot and you instantly ponder on the frailty of life.

That said, we would really like to see a reduction in road accidents during this holiday season. That would be one less thing for us as a nation to worry about.