300 crashes on Cayman’s roads in December

| 03/01/2020 | 71 Comments
Cayman News Service
One of the many crashes on the roads of Grand Cayman in December 2019

(CNS): The police have confirmed that they recorded around 300 crashes during the month-long holiday safety campaign, code name Operation Azurite Two, and arrested more than 50 drunk drivers, including two early on New Year’s Day. Over 1,300 tickets were also issued during December for offenses such as speeding, illegal tint and using mobile phones while behind the wheel. Over the month one driver was killed and several injured as 2019 drew to a close.

Police have yet to release the official road traffic figures for last year, but seven people died on Cayman’s roads over the last twelve months and police have dealt with numerous collisions and issued thousands of tickets.

However, 3,300 people in Grand Cayman and over 40 in Cayman Brac took advantage of the National Drug Council’s Purple Ribbon Bus Service for the New Year’s Eve celebrations and only two drunk drivers were arrested, highlighting the need for a late night bus service all year round to prevent drinking and driving.

“We want to thank everyone who made the responsible decision to ride the purple ribbon buses on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s morning,” said Inspector Dwayne Jones, head of the Traffic and Roads Policing Unit. “By taking advantage of this service you have helped us in making the roads safer for yourselves and others.”

Offering his thanks to the National Drug Council, their partners and sponsors for coming together, he added that road safety remains the number one priority for his unit.

“Now that Operation Azurite Two has concluded, our focus for the coming year will be to take a proactive approach to road safety through campaigns, partnerships and operations in order to ensure safety on our roadways,” the inspector said. “We will continue to provide safety tips to all road users, as well as increase enforcement to discourage traffic offenses from being committed and encourage good driving etiquette and proper use of the roadways by all road users.”


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Category: Crime, Police

Comments (71)

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  1. Mikey says:

    Operation Christmas Cracker was the best episode by the RCIP, that’s the episode when Baines took down the robbers right after the Holidays 🙂 The best

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  2. Anonymous says:

    Bring back Supt., Kevin McCann of the old Traffic Dept., then you’ll see a difference……these violators won’t know what hit them!! Neither will any officer slackers that are there now……best boss I ever had there.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Our roads are poorly designed due to the historical beginnings of narrow paths. We have no sidewalks, narrow lanes, poor lane usage, invisible signage at the roundabouts leaving tourists lost and confused. Stop building narrow curvy roads with unexpected curbs. Look at the amount of black tire marks on the freshly painted yellow curbs. We don’t have straight roads with city blocks so we have to make better drivers. The only other help would be to lower the speed limit throughout the country and enforce it. And compare accidents at roundabouts to accidents at stop lights.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Lol. Nothing wrong with the roads at all. Most of the world manages just fine without city blocks. The elephant in the room is simply that Caymanians and Jamaicans are shockingly unskilled drivers. You don’t see this kind of driving anywhere the rest of the population comes from.

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    • Anonymous says:

      The roads and signage are generally terrible and contribute to accidents. However, stop lights are no magic wand. Those lights by the compass/jacques scott, it seems people can’t even cope with 3 colors indicating when they should move and stop.

      These are the issues

      1. Crap drivers, many with no license or one found on a cornflakes box
      2. Useless signage
      3. Badly designed roads and roundabouts
      4. Lack of consistent traffic enforcement
      5. Slack DVDL records of drivers and vehicles
      6. Too many vehicles on roads ill equipped

      • Anonymous says:

        It’s also pretty impossible to reinforce our desired standards the way we are currently doing it. We have too many drivers on the roads who are just temporary, as an example, so we ought to have roadside signage reminding visitors of some of the important ways in which our rules may vary. Tourists have pointed out to me that the Asian car brands often used as rentals are in KM/h, but our signs are in m/h. Americans don’t know the conversion and can find themselves driving dangerously slow or fast without knowing it.

        There should be simple solutions to these issues which would just take some willpower from the powers that be and then maybe that would contribute in small part to our roads being safer.

  4. Anonymous says:

    The legacy of COP Baines who disbanded the traffic department.

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    • Anonymous says:

      And hundreds of police officers who watched law breakers speeding by and decided it was not their job to do anything, when that was in fact their job. To enforce the law!

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    • Moira Wright says:

      Traffic Police aint the answer to this… Cayman Govt sit back and watch their people get slaughteeed on the roads… No plan or reduction strategy in place.. it will continue until the Govt act… but hey ho… they dont care

  5. Anonymous says:

    This is how they drive in Cayman, on the roofs of their cars. Get used to it.

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  6. Anonymous says:

    Caymanians don’t do laws. They don’t do turn signals, don’t stay in their own lane, pass when ever, park in the road and never in a parking space, and have no concept of watch out for your fellow man. Plan accordingly.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Neither do expats, driving fancy cars home drunk as skunks. Plan accordingly.

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      • Anonymous says:

        And expats who buy they drivers licence. My ex boyfriend who dont know his name in neon lights bought his. $600 smackaroos.

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    • Anon says:

      60% of our drivers are Jamaicans not Caymanians. Don’t confuse us.

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      • Anonymous says:

        You are already confused. Everyone living on Cayman is from some where else. A lot of Caymanians are Jamaican and drive like it. Even more of them have been here long enough to drive even worse.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Exactly. Since the islands were uninhabited 250 years ago, everyone here is an expat. It’s just a question of time.

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  7. Anonymous says:

    The quality of drivers matches perfectly to the quality of law enforcement. It is the culture of these islands and can not be changed. Plan on some third world idiot running you off the road or just running into you sometime during your stay.

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  8. Right ya so says:

    Not at all surprised at this number. Waiting to pull out from Cricket Square onto Elgin I watched in amazement as a driver came flying down the turning lane, passing the CIG building, then Cricket Square barely missing the car pulling out from CNB as he continued flying down the centre lane, not a care in the world. This guy must have been doing 60/70mph. SMH.

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  9. Anonymous says:

    Ah, but at least we’re on top of the important matters in the country like making sure two women who love each other cannot marry.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Don’t be so melodramatic.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Don’t be so ignorant.

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      • Anonymous says:

        I’m not the original poster but I don’t think the comment from 7:34 is melodramatic. It’s an ironic comment on the tendency in Cayman to get fired up over issues that have some “biblical” connection while pretty much paying scant attention to truly important matters like crime, education, the environment etc. How many people showed some years back at the Lions Centre when gay marriage was the topic? About 2000? When did a meeting on education ever get more than 50?

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  10. OneCaymanianVoice says:

    Really now, this is outrageous by any means. We get upset when we see Police Road Blocks. at this rate you need one every 200 feet in order to keep the streets safe. There is a serious problem here and something needs to be done, what? I will leave that up to the many experts on this forum or within government

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  11. Anonymous says:

    300 reported crashes on islands with a surface area of just over 100 square miles and a population of around 60,000! That’s more than we get during a bad month where I live in the UK, in a busy area five times that size with over four times the population.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Well, I suggest you stay in the safe UK.

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      • Anonymous says:

        ANONYMOUS 8:36.

        You such an ignorant person. The writer is merely giving information about how many crashes takes place in his/her country.

        This Cayman Kind thing need to be abandon. Somw of you guys are tearing it down

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      • Anonymous says:

        Was that you that ran into a telephone pole last night! No? Not yet? Looked like your car.

  12. Anonymous says:

    CIG, as being responsible for governing the population, should be held responsible for the deaths and lawlessness on our roads. Every MLA past and present has FAILED to make our roads safe!

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  13. Anonymous says:

    “Operation Azurite Two” How much man power and resources are wasted coming up with these names, ffs.

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  14. Anonymous says:

    And are they going to actually continue making sure our roads are safe? And just to remind everyone again most people aren’t even drunk, they just can’t drive.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Some of the sober drivers are worse than the drunks. I watched a rental car fly around a roundabout the wrong way today and carry on completely unaware that it was pure good luck no other car was using it.

    • Anonymous says:

      Nope. Everything is fine in this kingdom of imbeciles.

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    • Anonymous says:

      1:39 Not only can’t they drive but the vehicles they’re driving wouldn’t pass a safety inspection in any First World country. It’s a combination of junk drivers driving junk vehicles. Even many of the fairly modern cars on the roads here aren’t properly maintained and run on tyres that the owners are getting from the junk yards because they won’t (or can’t) pay for new ones.

  15. Anonymous says:

    “3,300 people in Grand Cayman and over 40 in Cayman Brac took advantage of the National Drug Council’s Purple Ribbon Bus Service for the New Year’s Eve”

    This would be great, if people never went out any other night of the year…

    Can we run the bus every night?! This is proof of demand right?

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  16. Anonymous says:

    I wonder if PROPER statistics are kept on this?!! By that I mean information relating to the drivers. Male or female, nationality etc. that kind of information can be useful when revamping the Drivers Education Program (which is needed), as well as taking a look at those nationalities that may have to be exempted from the Geneva Exchange.

    This is getting out of hand. And the idea of population 100k only spells more trouble on our roads.

    There has to be a proper plan that is ACTIONABLE.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Ha! As you may recall, Hew held an “emergency meeting” when people started screaming about the traffic. That tells you what kind of PLAN he and his Govt. has. As long as the wealthy can tolerate…..the rest of us have no hope of relief. Facts.

  17. Anonymous says:

    That Mitsubishi in the photo is obviously an Australian import.

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  18. Anonymous says:

    free money making solution:
    treble all speeding fines. treble all fines for careless driving.
    apply a congestion charge fine (CI$2k) for every fender bender.

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  19. Anonymous says:

    I’ve heard that Watercolours was built for the fleet of recovery truck drivers and their families. Watermark then had to be built in anticipation of Christmas bonuses.

  20. Anonymous says:

    Can we please educate drivers to stay in the left lane unless passing, how to stay in a lane going around a roundabout and how to use signal lights for the love of Jesus H Christ!

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  21. Anonymous says:

    “We will continue to provide road safety tips”???? Many drivers (and, shockingly, many of them “professional” drivers in buses/ taxis/ company vehicles) continue to use the passing lane on any and all dual carriageway roads. When is there going to be some kind of full and proper education campaign? The bikes on loan from the hotels continue to be ridden on pavements and on the wrong side of the road. How difficult is it to ensure that the people loaning these bikes out make it very clear how dangerous/ illegal this is to their guests? When will we be advised of rules for electronic vehicles (bikes/ scooters/ boards and, of course, the segways)? With an increasing number of electronic vehicles finding their way onto pedestrian walkways and, again, traveling into oncoming traffic what are the rules? Many of these are not well lit and, again, an accident waiting to happen. Are we just waiting and hoping that people will learn what are laws are by osmosis?

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  22. Anonymous says:

    That should help alleviate the traffic problem.

  23. Anonymous says:

    RAMPANT HEAD AND TAIL LIGHT VIOLATORS:

    How many vehicles [motorists, buses, cyclists] are pulled over after dusk for head/taillights violations (Traffic Regs §3.13), or illegal use of fog lights (Regs §3.13.3)? Have any of these ever been ticketed and quantified by the RCIPS?

    It is a dangerous situation to have non-illuminated dark blob vehicles traveling around at speed at night. It’s recognized as one of the top 5 coincident indicators of intoxication in most police traffic departments around the world. In most states it would be a moving-violation resulting in demerit points, and substantial insurance premium consequences.

    Apparently here, you can weave a fully-loaded 40-passenger bus at 60 miles an hour through sober traffic without any RCIPS issues.

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  24. Anonymous says:

    Soon there will be no traffic.

  25. Anonymous says:

    Can we all agree that these crazy numbers are a clear indication that Cayman’s driving standards are unacceptably low?

    We should analyze where the persons responsible for accidents learned to drive. If Cayman, then we should raise our standards. If from particular countries overseas, we should stop accepting those countries’ licenses and require the nationals of those countries to undertake full testing and driver education under an enhanced local regime.

    Continued better enforcement would also be good in getting dangerous drivers off the roads BEFORE they have an accident.

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  26. Anonymous says:

    Ins. Dwayne Jones must be brand new here because he doesn’t seem to realize the annual January script of “proactive Traffic campaigns” hasn’t been followed-through for the last 30 years.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Give the man a break, he is trying. we have become a bunch of “cant be pleased, always complaining, part of the problem, whiners”

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