Jamaica The Killing Fields:

From time to time Jamaicans com­plain about some of the speed lim­its post­ed on cer­tain roads. We all get frus­trat­ed when we can­not zoom to and from where we want to go, and some­times just for the sheer exhil­a­ra­tion and fun, inher­ent in the act of dri­ving. An act that is tru­ly one of the real­ly great plea­sures of life.

If you don’t do it for a liv­ing that is.

July 31^st six peo­ple were killed in two sep­a­rate crash­es in Trelawny and St. Mary respec­tive­ly. This morn­ing August 1^st a motor­cy­clist and pas­sen­ger were killed in Toll Gate Clarendon.The police are report­ing nei­ther the motor­cy­clist nor the pas­sen­ger were wear­ing pro­tec­tive head-gear. To the best of my knowl­edge there is no law dic­tat­ing manda­to­ry hel­met use for motor­cy­clist and their passengers.

According to Police they are unable to say defin­i­tive­ly what caused the motor cycle crash, they the­o­rized it was speed­ing, the police went on to say no one has come for­ward to say what hap­pened. Word to the police , you guys real­ly are going to have to start look­ing to sci­en­tif­ic meth­ods to explain traf­fic acci­dents with­out any­one com­ing forward.

Long drag marks gen­er­al­ly mean some­one was speed­ing , before a crash,

Short drag gen­er­al­ly mean slow­er rate of speed .

No drag, gen­er­al­ly mean the dri­ver prob­a­bly fell asleep, or was under the influ­ence, real­ly nev­er saw it coming.

An acci­dent is some­thing the dri­ver could not have avoid­ed, and did not cause.

A crash is some­thing that the driver/​s caused out of neg­li­gence or oth­er means.

Example of an acci­dent : a dri­ver oper­at­ing under the rules of the road, is not ine­bri­at­ed by drink, drug, or any oth­er mind alter­ing sub­stance loos­es con­trol due to mois­ture on the road-way, oil, water, snow, and crashes.

A crash is the oppo­site : care­less; reck­less dri­ving, speed­ing, dri­ving under the influ­ence of drink , drugs, or oth­er mind alter­ing sub­stance, or oper­at­ing a vehi­cle in any oth­er way that is in con­tra­ven­tion of the rules of the roads. Police Officers inves­ti­gat­ing crash­es have to be able to make those dis­tinc­tions, this is now a sci­ence and requires the same amount of care and dili­gence that is required in homi­cide and oth­er seri­ous crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions, in some cas­es there needs to be a recon­struc­tion of the accident/​crash site with a view to deter­min­ing the lev­el of crim­i­nal neg­li­gence if any. After all vehic­u­lar manslaugh­ter is a seri­ous offense and should be pun­ished. I implore traf­fic police offi­cers, take your jobs seri­ous­ly, what you do in these inves­ti­ga­tions are sim­i­lar to what crim­i­nal detec­tives do in deter­min­ing crim­i­nal culpability.

For too long peo­ple have been dri­ving with Heineken , and gussi­ness bot­tles between their legs, this is preva­lent amongst those who oper­ate pub­lic pas­sen­ger vehi­cles, as well as pri­vate operators.

Another mind alter­ing drug is the wide­spread use of mar­i­jua­na amongst a wide cross-sec­tion of Jamaicans , it is high time that tests are done on dri­vers at the scene of crash­es to deter­mine whether they are under any influence.

As we all know most crash­es on our roads are not acci­dents , they are crash­es, insti­gat­ed by improp­er use of the road, drink­ing and dri­ving, improp­er over­tak­ing, no sig­nalling, tail­gat­ing, speeding,overloading, and a pletho­ra of road traf­fic infractions.Most crit­ics say well these are not seri­ous crimes , we have more press­ing crimes to attend to. I dis­agree , look at the results of these crashes.

If the car­nage on the roads is to be stopped , the police must first take a no-non­sense approach to speed­ing , a head on col­li­sion with two auto­mo­biles going 40 miles per hour each,crashes at 80 miles an hour, gen­er­al­ly no one walks away from that type of crash with the auto­mo­biles we have today. However this is a tall order as we ask the police to do more , unsup­port­ed by leg­is­la­tion, and a jus­tice sys­tem that is in tat­ters and real­ly does noth­ing to make it clear to scofflaws, that they will be severe­ly penalized.

If the police is to be suc­ces­ful in sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing the car­nage on the roads, they must first purge the dirty cops from with­in their own ranks. Scofflaws must under­stand they will not be able to hand a few bills to cops and con­tin­ue to break the laws, the actions of the police must how­ev­er be sup­port­ed , hand in hand by stiffer tougher penalties.

What we are see­ing play out on our streets is an exten­sion of the deprav­i­ty and out­right law­less­ness that is now the norm , of course there is no vis­i­ble end in sight with the present crop of politi­cians and oth­ers who ben­e­fit from this chaos.

mike beck­les:

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