Two dozen weekend crashes reported
(CNS): Police attended two dozen crashes, one of them serious, over the Father’s Day weekend. They also issued 50 tickets, most of them for speeding, and arrested eleven drivers for drinking and driving, as the road safety campaign, Operation Quaker, continued. According to the RCIPS, officers on Grand Cayman carried out high visibility patrols and several vehicle checkpoints on Sunday during daylight and late evening hours to target drunk driving and speeding island-wide. There was also increased their enforcement on the Sister Islands, resulting in a number of prosecutions.
Of the 24 collisions, one that happened in the early hours of Sunday morning at the intersection of Shamrock Road and Beach Bay Road resulted in two people being treated in hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Police said that at about 2:45am a silver Honda Accord wagon left the roadway and collided with a tree. Both the driver and passenger were transported to hospital by the emergency services and they remain in a stable condition.
“Collisions like this are the reason we will not be letting up on our Operation Quaker activities anytime soon,” said Inspector Dwayne Jones from the traffic unit. “While we are pleased with the enforcement results this past weekend, we want the public to remember that even a single instance of poor driving behaviour can lead to tragedy. As always, we ask the public to do their part and drive safely.”
Chief Inspector Malcolm Kay said the RCIPS hopes the continued educational campaign, which is being conducted in partnership with the NRA, and the enforcement operations will lead to a “fundamental change” in driving behaviour across all of the Cayman Islands. “With the preservation of life being our primary focus, we will continue to persist in our road safety efforts, thus making the Cayman Islands safer,” he added.
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“Fifty tickets most for speeding over the weekend”. There are hundreds of motorists speeding every day on the bypass to West Bay.If the police did their job or installed speed cameras this would help defer the cost of these stipends as well as make the roads safer.
What is this obsession with speed? You can drive fast and safe and you can drive slow and dangerously. Speeders are only a tiny subset of the poor driving seen here.
Jamaicans drive fast. No drivers education in Caribbean school systems
None in UK school system either. So what?
Our roads have killed five more people than COVID has this year alone. Stay safe out there!
maybe rcips should release stats on the nationalities causing accidents?
then maybe cig will stop accepting their national driving liscences as being valid…. truth hurts but jamaicans can’t drive.
why not follow uk rule where jamiacans must apply for uk liscence after 12 months including sitting a test?
free money making solution.
will keep asking:
my dashcam records hundred of incidents of dangerous driving every week.
why do rcips not want this footage?
why would a police department not want clear evidence of people breaking the law?
if i had video footage or robberies, would they want the footage?
will wait for answers
They don’t want it because of the workload it brings; quite simple; there is no other reason than sheer laziness or that they are “under staffed”.
Strange how they want the publics assistance but don’t want the publics assistance.
In order to prosecute based on video evidence
a) RCIPS would, for most offences, need to be able to demonstrate who was driving the vehicle as opposed to who the registered owner was – so unless your dashcam can capture evidence of that then its not really a lot of use
b) even if it could, the person prosecuted could contest video evidence and demand that expert evidence be brought in. Now that may be worth doing for a criminal trial involving robbery, or violent crime, or a major traffic offence with criminal conviction consequences such as hit and run – but not really feasible on $500 ticket offences like failing to indicate, improper display of licence plates, not wearing a seatbelt etc etc.
FFS, just take it in.
Is it evidential quality? Clearly showing face of driver, time and location. If so, make a complaint, give a statement and allow the police to do what they need.
According to your logic then all CCTV footage is pointless…
Most is yes. See the recent case of the guy firing a gun outside a bar in GT. In any event you ignore the point about someone having to file a complaint and make a statement for the video to stand any chance of being used as evidence of anything.
It mostly is, but I don’t see your point.
Use the helicopter and video bad drivers. Radio down to waiting cops.
If drivers don’t know if they are being watched, they will start driving properly.
The helicopter costs thousands of dollars per flight, that’s a ridiculous use of resources.
A couple of unmarked police bikes would be great. On my motorbike today, I saw 3 people on their phones driving through the lights by the cricket pitch, that’s in literally one cycle of the lights too. In a 20 minute journey, I reckon I saw 7+ on their phones. Extrapolate that number across the traffic on this island!
I have never said or even thought this in my life before, but on the question of road safety I am now convinced that the RCIPS are failing and failing badly. They need to change their approach from begging people to drive safely and bemoaning the situation and conducting the occasional high-profile campaigns to proactively and constantly patrolling well-known accident black spots and racetracks and cracking down on every single lawbreaker they see in the roads, whatever the offense. Stop vehicles, check tyres, check licenses, insurance, up to date tests. Put up roadblocks in the middle of the day. Go into the supermarket car parks, note the details of every car that is breaching regulations, and ticket them.
Zero tolerance of ALL infractions, however minor. If it worked in NYC in the nineties, it can work here, now.
Truth is, I think your average cop thinks he or she is above such tedious work, and I think they’re encouraged in that view by those senior to them. They just want to cruise around in their comfy air conditioned cars, turning a blind eye to what the rest of us see daily.
Every time I drive in Grand Cayman, I see people flagrantly breaking the law. No front number plates, illegal tints, tailgating, driving drunk or drugged up, using phones, speeding: you name it. And the trucks are even worse.
If I can see all this, I simply don’t believe the police can’t. But individual cops seem to think they can choose to ignore it. To me that means just one thing: they are failing.
Two more points. The first is that the police themselves sometimes don’t know the rules of the road. Hey officer! Going right on a roundabout using the left-hand lane is illegal, even if you are driving your big-ass armed response unit truck! Read the Highway Code, FFS!
And the second is that this is a national emergency. More people are dying on the roads per year than from Covid. But somehow that is tolerated. Why? acceptable.
The buck for the police stops with the governor, who is immune to these day to day problems and probably listens more to the commissioner on such matters than is healthy. It’s time for proper consultation with the public as to what they really think about the police efforts in road safety. Begin with a police/citizens committee to discuss the issue. Make its discussions public and invite comments and suggestions from the public to the citizen members to consider and pass on to the police. You could even revive the National Security Council to do the job.
I’m sick and tired of feeling so angry and frustrated with the RCIPS about this and having no way of getting my voice heard.
I agree but given the make up of the population it will never work. There is already a huge problem of uninsured and unlicensed drivers on the roads. So they get a ticket, they won’t pay it. They first need to end the practice of the third party garages that certify anything with wheels for a fee. I could go on with the now crazy electric scooters/bikes weaving in and out of traffic on the ETH, it won’t be long before one of these riders gets taken out. Sadly, Cayman is a land of endless Laws with no enforcement and everyone knows it so they happily go about their day knowing the odds are slim they will ever be stopped.
Below I comment on the good work RCIPS are now doing but I am with you 100%. It has taken deaths on the roads to make them do something. Basically out of embarrassment because how can they patrol in public and not be. The roads here, in a developed economy, are some of the worst for safety that I know. Pressure from the public AND THE PRESS will hold RCIPS to the fire of public opinion to make them do their job. Questions still remain. 1. How many of the DUI arrests are as a result of a positive breath test after an accident. 2. What is the plan to target those that get convicted driving while disqualified. 3. What are the press going to do to report the details of the convicted, including their vehicle license and vehicle make/model. 4. What are the legislators going to do to halt this DUI empidemic? Increase sentencing, crush uninsured vehicles, seize unlicensed vehicles, double the sentencing, make a second conviction for DUI imprisonable with a minimum 12 month sentence, create an education program, fund civil litigation for injured parties by a DUI driver, improve late night public transport, toughen up the driving test and make it mandatory for all expats after 12 months here, toughen up the motor testing process. And that lot is just a start. This has to be taken seriously because people are dying and the comparison with COVID is evidence of what the Government can do in times of need. People dying on the roads is not acceptable and the Government need to grip it. Hard
A thousand likes. The traffic laws need to be enforced all day, every day. Then perhaps the idiot drivers will learn to heed them all.
Well done RCIPS keep up the excellent work.
24 Crashes and how many tickets issued? None?
50 Speeding tickets and how many were simply for exceeding an arbitrary number in an otherwise safe manner? Almost all of them?
Occurs to me this focus on speeding is simply to be seen to be doing something as opposed to targeting the idiots who actually cause crashes; blind overtakes, aggressive weaving in and out of traffic, inability to navigate roundabouts in the correct lane and scrap Honda racing.
I agree but downvoted because speeding is speeding. You can’t arbitrarily decide who is better at it.
Fair point but in my opinion doing 50, 60 or even 70 on ETH past the dump is WAY less dangerous than, for example, the idiot weaving through heavy traffic at a legal 40 yesterday who missed me by about 6 inches or the idiots driving down the middle of W Bay Rd at 25 when everyone else is stationary, or the idiots overtaking on the wrong side(!) of N Sound Rd outside Jaques Scott. Yet they target speeding because it’s easy, it’s highly visible, it brings in cash. I’m not convinced it will make even a scrap of difference to the standard of driving or number of crashes.
The real solution is hard work but would make a real difference; proper driver training and testing.
The point about ticketing is right. When a vehicle is involved in an accident and the police are involved they should be proactively looking for offences. Was the phone in use, do they check it?, what is the physical state of the vehicle, is it insured, does the driver have a license, is the vehicle tested and licensed, did they breathalyse the drivers where drink is suspected or the law allows and on and on. All offences should be rigously pursued. Police management should be questioning officers when they leave an accident scene without a ticket or prosecution found.
As the original poster I agree but to be fair they do breathalyse anyone involved in a crash they suspect of drinking; it’s not hard to tell.
These patrols are a joke. I witnessed a car passing a police vehicle tailgating the car in front of him and when he got past the police car he rocketed away with no fear of consequences. I was very shocked and disappointed.
Don’t worry they will start stacking the speed traps if this trend continues. The only problem is the Traffic Court will be overloaded and subsequently backlogged. I only hope the Crown is gearing up for swift prosecutions.
You don’t go to the court for speed ticket. If you pay before expire date then no visit to the court.
And if you forget to pay before the court date they will send two detectives to spend the morning hunting you down at your various work places in hopes of surprising you and arresting and handcuffing you so as to take you to the lockup in Northward until a Caymanian you know can come and sign a bond for you.
Memo to file: don’t talk on the phone while driving.
Addendum: if you do talk on the phone and get a ticket, don’t forget to pay it.
How many offenders just cough up the fine? I bet not many
You can be done for speeding in court. It’s automatic if over $500 ticket.
Why, other than gross mismanagement and incompetence, do we not have an effective, efficient and even profitable ticketing system?
Maybe the cop had a prisoner in the back seat and couldn’t stop the speeder. Or maybe they were on their way to a call and couldn’t deviate to stop the speeder.
Lots of conclusions you are jumping to.
Maybe they just are lazy.
100% agree. Just because lights and sirens are not activated doesn’t mean the unit isn’t otherwise engaged.
A police car with someone in the back isn’t stopping anyone, or responding to any call apart from the most desperate. They’re heading to the detention centre.
We have limited roads so not sure why it is so hard to catch the speeders. Cops just need to do their damn jobs. I got pulled over two years ago and was fined for my tint and had to pay again to remove it. Every day I count at least 10 cars with tints much darker than mine. SMH!
So what? learn your lesson and don’t give it the “well, he’s doing it too!” excuse. It’s childish logic, too commonly used here.
Yet there continues to be no real alternative for people returning from a night out to take. No public transport–Flex is a good option, but tried to get one at 3AM for someone going home and they had all gone to bed! Taxi cost them $60.
Government really needs to do something here.
How about you take responsibility for yourself and not look to the government to do that?
because the government mandates the price so they do hold responsibility as well.
You getting drunk is not the government’s responsibility.
Or how about this for a novel idea from the rest of the world it’s called a designated driver smh
They are almost entirely avoidable.
Crap heaps on the road, drivers with the brains of a chicken, ‘licensed’ drivers who never really passed any test worthy of the name, as well as some truly terrible road layouts that assume people know what they’re actually doing…yeah, fix these things and you’ll see crashes almost eradicated. Ain’t happening though!
Drinking and driving continues to be of epidemic proportions in Cayman. Pretty much every echelon of society is involved from top to bottom.
Many people have been drinking a lot more since COVID.
I expect there will be a new medical condition identified known as COVID-Liver?
Get help people. Life without alcohol is very rewarding and fulfilling.
Here are some stories from real people.
https://www.coach.me/questions/30050-positive-side-effects-of-not-drinking-for-4-days-go
Good luck.
Cant wait to read the names on the court Rota!
I posted the following comment several days ago but I am posting it again as I was a few days late in commenting last time:
What we really need is a sustained (ongoing) National Traffic Safety Campaign. It needs to be 24 x 7, 365 days a year. And not only the RCIPS. We need all of the elected representatives, churches, schools, service clubs, corporations, businesses, sports clubs, bars, restaurants, NRA, etc. to be involved. In other words… EVERYONE!
We have had some attempts over the years by MattSafe, Road Safety Advisory Council, StreetSkill, etc., but most of these have come and gone.
The crashes continue… people are killed, people are injured, people are inconvenienced, property is damaged… yet we don’t seem to learn.
We can do better. We MUST do better.
Fully agree, it starts with things like driving in the correct lane and using your indicators. The insurance companies will save a lot of money if there are less accidents so they should also be more proactive.
I agree with you but it will take the RCIPS to enact it and that is slim to none. I was driving yesterday on the West Bay By-Pass around 7:00 when a guy driving about 90 weaving in and out of traffic came by me. There was a cop on the opposite side of the road and passed him but did nothing. The guy didn’t slow down either so he must have known k=no one would stop him. Until RCIPS is willing to ticket relatives, friends, and officials and their families it won’t ever stop. There is no respect for the rules of the road here.
If he’s doing 90, you know how far away he’ll be by the time the patrol car is able to turn around? That is, assuming the patrol car wasn’t already tied up doing some other thankless task.
Give me Uber or Flex and I’ll stop. I’m serious.
There’s Flex already, but it sucks as it is no different to taxi cartel idiocy.
Uber or similar would be great.
On another note, just stop driving drunk, you absolute dickhead.
I’ll give you a prison sentence and crush your car. Idiots like you should be barred from driving because you’re clearly as thick as mince.
These collisions should be divided into two categories: ‘Accidents’ and ‘Avoidables’.
IMHO the majority of collisions on our roads are avoidable and preventable with just a bit of common sense, common courtesy and respect for the rules of the roads and for other people’s lives.
STOP! Stop calling it an operation when it’s your job 24/7! Every morning the same dorks in Honda’s speed dangerously from bodden town to gt but not a cop in sight. Shameful.
Unfortunately it’s around shift change time, so mostly only traffic dept on the road then.
There will be no change in driving habits unfortunately. It’s too far gone.
I can tell cause they race past the traffic department every time.