Police dish out tickets to rogue drivers
(CNS): Traffic cops issued 15 speeding tickets on Friday alone as they moved to clamp down on the increasing number of reckless drivers on the road, despite the COVID-19 curfew. And a cyclist became the latest person to be injured on local roads when he was hit by a jeep in Newlands, Friday morning. The resurgence in crashes and rogue driving is causing concern for police, who urged drivers to slow down.
The penalty for speeding is $20 every mile over the limit that you are recorded going when stopped by police. Officers from the Traffic and Roads Policing Unit said all road users should exercise caution on the roads and follow the rules.
“The speeds that we are seeing are excessive, and I want to emphasise how much risk this level of speeding poses, not just to your safety but to that of other road users as well,” said Inspector Dwayne Jones, head of the TRPU. “However, it is not only a safety risk but a financial one as well and those persons who are ticketed will be facing fines of several hundred dollars.”
If a member of the public reaches a speed where the fine would exceeds $500 they will have to make a mandatory court appearance, where they are likely to lose their licence for a minimum of six months.
Police said they are now investigating the incident involving the cyclist, which happened at the junction of Hirst Road and the East West Arterial. The bicycle had been travelling along the East West Arterial and the Jeep was moving north on Hirst Road when they collided. The rider was treated for non-life-threatening injuries at the hospital but the driver of the Jeep was uninjured.
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Category: Crime, Local News, Police
Nothing better than feeling that turbo spool and a gearbox that dont grind…
As you can all see by the many comments the problem is not the reckless and disrespectful drivers. It’s the lack of competent and functional law enforcement that is the norm in Cayman and has been for a long time. There are bad drivers all over the world but in most places they are afraid of getting caught and ticketed so they drive safe. Here there is almost no chance of getting caught, pulled over, or ticketed because there is no police presence on the roads and what you see is usually not doing any enforcement at all. It was explained to me that there is no enforcing the rules because it would be culturally insensitive. That must be it because it seems like the leadership makes sure the police is too busy doing (?) to do their jobs. That is why no one can go in the water on this stupid island because the police can not enforce any law on the beaches. Pathetic. But normal for here.
Was driving down South Sound Road today doing 30 miles an hour or maybe 32, but alas, five cars overtook me going 50 while the roads are very small and people on both sides are exercising….. not a cop to be seen. This is ridiculous.
South Sound Road is a speedway. It is only a matter of time before someone is killed by one of these speeding idiots. And then the cops will say, “We didn’t know.”
People have been killed on SS road and they still do bare minimum.
Isnt South Sound Road a 25 mile limit?
No, 30
No one should be allowed to drive again until there are no fatal accidents for 14 consecutive days. Then we can slowly begin to phase in certain classes of people who may begin driving again, but at only half the posted speed limit.
Brilliant comment
You probably think Donald Trump is brilliant, too, don’t you?
Not in the slightest. But I’m smart enough to know that the USA and Cayman differ so I don’t compare the strategies. Get over your obsession with anyone who opposes the CIGs plan so far is a right wing nut job. Covid isn’t political but you can’t get that through your head.
Yes
Stupid stupid stupid, these reckless drivers ase get the cops to police and arrest. Do road more people will die.
Good job patting yourselves on the back. There’s 400 officers (I know not at once) and countless reckless morons and 15 measly tickets were issued. Let me borrow a cruiser and radar and I’ll match that in about 20 twenty minutes by myself including the time it takes to write the tickets.
Appreciate all the police are doing to try and help but let’s not pretend like all of a sudden we’re actually impressed by law enforcement in this country. Prior to covid it was a joke and only because of covid and the risk it poses to front line workers are we giving police a bit of a break. So while I’m tolerant I’m certainly not impressed
Exactly. 4 days on, 4 days off, would suggest >200 full-time career officers on duty on any given day of the week. Where are they? The budget suggests we are spending an average of KYD$125,000 per full time officer on the force. The coverage to performance ratio is irreconcilable.
We live right on Shamrock rd by spotts dock…haven’t seen a single person pulled over yet for speeding but all day long cars fly by in excess of 60 and sometime beyond 80 mph for sure. Once a day at least hear someone doing close to 100. One simple speed trap would sort this out fast and bring some revenue in. The number of vehicular deaths we have per capita is straight up embarrassing
The RCIPS are as hopeless as their second rate boss.
Get out there and stop the hundreds of cars that are breaking the soft curfew, the contractors breaking social distancing by ramming cabs full of workers and the obvious black market economy being run by those ignoring everything the govt says.
You can’t police at 50mph, you can’t Police staying in a/c, you can’t police if your not prepared to ask questions and seek truthful answers.
The COP is delusional if he believes that crime is low, almost every other vehicle is either breaking curfew requirements or is unworthy in one form or another.
Get out of your ivory tower sir, and do your damn job.
How do you know that “almost every other vehicle” is breaking the curfew requirements. If you consider your assumed breaches of “soft curfew” as high crime, I will take that every day on the week and twice on Sunday.
Why don’t they invest in a couple of speed cameras. The speeding fines would cover the costs within days. Also whilst I am on my soapbox do something about persons driving while on their phone. I thought it was illegal but it seems to be very popular. My friend died in a crash trying to text and drive at the same time. It’s a terrible way to discover the real danger of this and such a ridiculous waste of life.
A very good idea which has been worn out by repetition over the years. Cameras are not subjective like RCIPS traffic officers frequently are. Cameras do not discriminate on skin tone, price of car or social status. This approach although efficient and cheaper than RCIPS officers pushes all the wrong buttons as a certain privileged and entitled faction of our society needs the “do you know who I am?” loophole to evade punishment.
We have 400+ full-time officers and an annual policing budget of >KYD$125,000 per officer – more than some smaller NATO member countries…frankly, I think we are missing more than just a few speed cameras.
The cops should stake out South Sound Road. Today, around 6pm, walkers, runners, bicyclists everywhere, many of the children, and yet multiple speeding cars, a black sports car doing around 50 and motorbike going even faster than that. These weren’t the delivery guys everyone complains about.
While I’m at it, the Premier warned bicyclists to ride on the left hand side of the road, with traffic, as they should. He should have mentioned that pedestrians (which include the runners) should walk/run against traffic. There are too many clueless people walking against the pedestrians who are following the law, and in many cases, passing with in inches. I had one runner actually hit me with his disgusting man sweat last week. I’m going to call the people “clueless” on the hope they’re just not a bunch of disrespectful jerks.
I live on South Church Street and it’s a miracle no-one has been hurt or killed there. It’s far too busy and from Silverside restaurant to Pure Art, it has become a racetrack. Open the beaches for goodness sake and let people exercise there!
The reckless behavior of drivers on this island will never change unless they make it law to confiscate the vehicle and impound it. Government should look into this as a business, invest in some land, create a new division for policing it and charge high fees to release the vehicle back . Trust me , take the car from these morons and attitudes will soon change.
The government through the NRA may be complicit in the current health and safety of cyclists on Cayman roads. The maintenance of the road verges that cyclists are forced to use is neglected in the extreme. In many instances the road edges are broken, dug up and ill repaired by various utilities; overhanging branches, dead animal carcasses, loose gravel, gaping holes and garbage. Now add the speeding drivers, people commuting on the wrong side of the street. You get the picture, the authorities just don’t care. “Roads are built for cars and trucks anything big. Drivers have figured it out, you can get away with murder and call it an accident. P.S. I just gave up cycling. Can’t depend on good luck.
I suppose we’ll have to FOI the NRA on status of the missing in action street cleaner machinery. Road shoulders are filled with construction debris hurled loose from the speeding over-loaded dump trucks. Still no proper bike lanes. Joey is just as useless as the rest of them at abiding headless/directionless thieving departments as Minister.
Im glad police are planning on upping their presence on the roads and I really hope it works in deterring anti-social driving activity but i am doubtful. There are so many people out walking, running and cycling atm because we cant drive to exercise. It really is utterly dangerous what these drivers are doing. I’ve had multiple people tailgating me. Where the hell do these people have to be in such a hurry? Others see the emptier roads as a chance for them to play in there own need for speed movie. It is disgustingly stupid and needs to stop. Terrible driving is much riskier to peoples health than Covid-19 ever could be.
Driving or biking on the roads of Cayman are way more dangerous than the virus but it is culturally OK to drive and park dangerously on this island. There are more accidents then positives but that’s OK.
You are absolutely right. Covid has caused no deaths in the community whereas annually on the roads there are 10 deaths per year and countless other injuries. Weird how no effort is made to change driving behaviour to save lives.
Elsewhere, lone attentive patrolling career traffic specialty officers might pull over and ticket an average of between 2 and 20 cars per free shift hour, and each stop might have up to 5 or more ticket citations. We’re obviously doing something wrong if the unit head is blindsided by just 15 tickets written across the full “COVID-blitz” unit patrol team, over a whole day across the whole island.
Dear Dwayne: The accepted method to controlling public behavior has been showing up to enforce the law. It doesn’t work with PR releases of disappointment, or with explanatory warnings, or with continuation of a robust honor system, and crony free passes. The RCIPS are duty-bound to consistently show up for work and write as many tickets as may be necessary in the commission of their chosen occupation to get the behavior in order. That includes doing their job on the 48 full time weeks outside of their purple ribbon season. The public has been demanding the RCIPS take an interest in their jobs to regulate traffic for over 15 years. We are paying over 400 full time officers, full salary and benefits for 4 days on, 4 days off shift work. For the love of God, no more announcements that you are nearly about to almost one day start doing your jobs.
You must be very stupid or very brave to suggest that there should be equal enforcement of any laws around here… Jackass. Etc.
Proverbs 12:1
Funny, but different Dwayne this time…Dwayne Jones, Head of the phantom TRPU.
Cyclists on this island are the bravest of the brave. Far too many nutjobs here posing as ‘drivers’.
But none to rouge construction sites