Authorities are today urging motorists to exercise more caution on the roads and to slow down.
This follows three road fatalities last week over a three-day period; a number of serious accidents; a mass casualty involving a minibus which left 37 people injured; and more recently a serious accident involving a ZR van over the just concluded weekend which left 12 people nursing injuries.
Police public relations officer, Inspector David Welch, was among those urging motorists to drive carefully. He added that the Royal Barbados Police Force would also be stepping up its road safety campaign and its patrols across the island.
The General Insurance Association of Barbados (GIAB), and the Barbados Road Safety Association (BRSA) have also added their voices to the pleas for motorists to be more careful on the roads.
Expressing sympathies to the families who lost loved ones over the past week, officials at the GIAB indicated the recent spate of accidents and fatalities were linked to a number of factors.
Those factors include excessive speed, reckless driving, drivers not paying enough attention, using cellular phones while driving, illegal racing, drunk driving and driver fatigue.
In a statement issued, the GIAB cautioned all drivers that the vehicles they were in control of could become dangerous weapons if not handled correctly.
However, BRSA president, Sharmain Roland-Bowen, has expressed concern over the island’s six road fatalities recorded in the first six month of the year. In particular, she noted that most of those accidents involved males in the prime of their lives.
The country recorded road fatalities over last week Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. In the first two incidents, passengers in vehicles died following crashes, while the third involved a pedestrian being struck and killed by a ZR van while on his way to work.
By Thursday afternoon a minibus overturned along a section of the Pinders Bottom Main Road in St. George, after the bus drove through oil on the road causing the driver to lose control.
A total of 37 people were injured in that accident which activated the country’s mass casualty response teams, and has left five people critically injured. Injuries from that accident ranged from fractures, lacerations, trauma and injury to the extremities, head, chest and abdomen.
By Thursday night emergency personnel were again pressed into action as a car overturned in Jackson, St. Michael when its driver lost control and struck an embankment.
Lawmen were also called out to an overturned car in Dunscombe, St. Thomas, and a two-vehicle smash up in Sterling, St. Philip, the same day.
By Saturday night, lawmen were again at the scene of a serious accident involving a ZR van and a car at Vauxhall, Christ Church, which left 12 people nursing injuries.
In that crash nine adults and two children on the ZR van and the driver of the car escaped with their lives after the van ended up on its side, and the car on its roof after colliding. Both were en route to Bridgetown when they collided and overturned.
Some of those injured complained of pain in the neck, legs and back, while others complained of superficial bruises and scratches.
(Source http://www.caribbean360.com/index.php/news/barbados_news/562333.html#axzz1pgue6k00)
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