Don’t take too long, Gov’t told

Government is being urged not to allow too much time to elapse before the amendments to the Road Traffic Act officially become law.

A local road safety advocate believes three months is ample time for Government to proclaim the new road traffic act and educate the public about the measures contained therein.
In a recent interview with The Barbados Advocate, President of the Barbados Road Safety Association (BRSA), Sharmane Roland-Bowen, therefore called on the relevant authorities to move with alacrity to ensure that legislation can be in place by the end of the first quarter of the New Year.

Her remarks came as she said that by March the authorities should have enough time to procure the necessary equipment and facilitate the requisite training needed to put the legislation into effect.

“We do not want it to be put on the backburner with the upcoming elections. I would like it to be put in place sooner rather than later because we don’t want to see a repeat of this year with the number of fatalities recorded. We want to hear that the police have started their training in breathalyser testing, that’s when we know we are really going forward. But right now we are still at the starting gate. So we want to hear the police’s training has started; we want to hear the breathalysers have been acquired and are here; and that the education, the public awareness that is needed has started,” she said.

Roland-Bowen added, “These amendments are not only there to dish out penalties to persons who break the traffic laws, they should be seen as a way of educating persons. We believe that those who go before the law courts for traffic infractions should be subjected to education. We would also like to see the insurance companies playing a bigger role by making sure that their policyholders are educated as to the risk factors involved in unsafe driving.”

In the meantime, however, she is urging motorists to be proactive, becoming au fait with the amendments so that they can start to abide by the new rules. Taking a proactive approach, she said, should help to ensure for safer roads and that the fatalities for 2018 do not rise to double digits as it did this year. Her comments came as she said that the goal remains zero road fatalities.

“Don’t wait until the legislation is proclaimed to start to find out what’s in it. We all have a duty to get up to scratch from now, all this is time we should be practising. Individuals and companies should be seeking from now to equip their vehicles with the recommended hands-free bluetooth devices, because the evidence shows that the majority of accidents are caused by inattention and diverted attention, so we should be proactive,” she stated.
(JRT)