Cops respond to 25 weekend crashes
(CNS): The fatal collision on Friday evening in West Bay and the serious crash near Seven Mile Public Beach early Sunday morning were two of 25 road collisions reported to the RCIPS in another dangerous weekend for road users. From 24 September through 26 September, officers responded to the more than two dozen crashes all across Grand Cayman, including another motorcycle smash in East End on Saturday morning.
As well as dealing with these collisions, the police also doled out 23 speeding tickets, 12 tickets for using a mobile phone while driving, and arrested three drivers for DUI.
The RCIPS is urging the public to always practicing safe driving behaviours. In addition to avoiding traffic offenses such as speeding, distracted driving, and DUI, consideration should always be given to other road users, including cyclists and pedestrians.
“It’s everyone’s job to help keep our roads safe,” says Chief Inspector Malcolm Kay. “A quick glance at that cell phone, failing to indicate, or rushing to pass an intersection before the other car pulls out, are some of the seemingly minor things that can contribute to a collision. A police officer may not pull you over every single time you do one of these things, but it only takes one moment of carelessness for these actions to put your life, or someone else’s life, at risk.”
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
(In response to 7.24 am.) Although starting in May 2017, Cayman still hasn’t managed to replace all the old vehicle license plates. When the Police get to the point of using their scanners, they’ll be confronted with 5% of cars with the old plates and another 5% with only one plate on display, randomly placed on either the front or rear of the car. This begs the question, how is it possible for a member of the public to report a vehicle if there’s no license plate visible? The situation seems to be out of control.
Cayman islands will never have a working law enforcement unless the UK takes over. It has been proven time and time again that clearly a functional law enforcement agency on this island would be culturally insensitive and invasive to the people who vote and get voted in to power. Best thing you can do to stay safe on the roads is drive less and stay far away from other cars. Have patience. Every time there is a bad accident another car or two is taken off the roads and away from an idiot.
Quiet weekend then?
Seriously though i a daily stopped jogging on s sound as im constantly almost written off bu texters driving and not paying attention.
Total idiots i mean total. No brain cells at all most of them.
Something seriously needs to be done and i mean now. But you know what? It wont be .
Absolutely nothing will be done
Then I get fined 220 kyd for going 11mph over (51) in a 40 mph limit on a Sunday afternoon (20 bucks for every mph over) on an empty road with no residential or school areas in site of me, approaching ALT roundabout, I’m the only car on the road on a Sunday. And I’m driving perfectly. They just want money. Never see these cops out when it’s busy with people causing accidents. Learn to indicate, use the inner most lane, don’t tail gate, stop eating and phoning and texting whilst you drive. Meanwhile I pay your speeding fines because they know I pay on time even though I’m a better driver than you. Disgusts me.
Er … try sticking to the speed limit?
So you are part of the problem because all the other Muppets think like you… smh
What part of speeding is breaking the law don’t you understand?
Your literacy speaks volume. ‘Takes one to know one’ is a true old age saying.
Totally agree with you! I ride a motorbike almost everyday and half of the drivers I see are on the phone texting!!!!
The police have no direction of the leaders to do anything about it.
In no particular order, most of these behaviours are repeated time after time…
1. Tailgaiting.
2. Speeding (or driving way too slow).
3. Lack of indicators.
4. Not stopping properly at STOP signs.
5. Weaving in an out of traffic (especially on Linford Pierson or Esterly Tibbetts).
6. Talking on phone (or otherwise distracted).
7. Driving under the influence.
8. Not everyone wearing seatbelts.
9. Cutting across lanes within roundabouts.
10. Dangerous (sometimes illegal) overtaking.
11. Pulling out onto the road without properly looking.
12. Not slowing down in school zones.
I could go on, but these are some of the main ones.
Be safe, Cayman!
… and yet the only thing the police issue tickets for is speeding and talking on the phone. If they want to make the roads safer they need to enforce all of the rules of the road not just two.
Okay, for all the people not in the know. The reason the police do not write tickets so often. Is because they are still done manually by hand. And the transfer of those tickets to the database of the RCIP then the transfer of that manually written ticket to the courts which then as to be manually inputted again. Is labor intensive. But very soon, and it’s already here. Electronic ticket writers. Once the test period is over. Expect there to be a lot more tickets written when it’s all automatic and no one has to input ticket information 3 times for one ticket. By hand. Then wait until the decision to put licenses scanners on the cruisers. With a 95% accuracy rate, it means if your license is expired, no insurance or safety sticker. A police cruiser just needs to pass your vehicle and it auto scans every plate. And that information is collected instantly and a beep comes from the cruisers laptop, with a marker, telling the officer what your doing illegally.
It’s coming folks. Don’t worry.
I am sure that it will work as well as the multi million dollar fingerprint system.
They pick the low hanging fruit as it is easier to deal with. It also enables the production of performance statistics which are used to defer attention away from their underperformance in all other areas of traffic management.
13. Don’t even know what is either side of you or in front behind. So just join the queue in rush hour as you slowly trudge home. How about look up… let one in each car to go the other way as they try to enter the roundabout… be a good consicencious driver… help the traffic flow. But no not in cayman…. It’s shocking. Im from the uk, lived here 13 years, love caymanians and this island, but I tell you most caymanian drivers who never drove abroad would be in a serious cash in 10 minutes in England, no awareness.
You forgot stopping at roundabouts when there is no on coming traffic.
Point #9
OMG.
Every f**King day.
Drives me insane.
free money making solutions:
bring in privately run traffic police who are funded by fines collected.
this will then free up police to to do real police work or we can just cut their numbers by 25%.
treble all fines.
make jamaicans pass driving test here within 6 months of arriving. its what happens in the uk
Can they also investigate the use of phones and applying makeup while driving in the morning.
Maybe they disgruntled…as seem to be filing court cases ..one even went privy council…yet we tge ppl are suffering? Leaders? Where are u
Being honest it’s a perfect storm –
Unqualified drivers with zero road awareness, who don’t know how to drive to any of the highway rules in the Cayman Islands and don’t have to take any form of practical test to drive here.
Death trap cars, passed for inspection through incompetence and/or bribery, in addition to the enormous, utterly unnecessary SUVs and trucks
A police service, reluctant to engage with the public, that will not even breathalyze a driver as a matter of course after an accident.
A government and civil service seemingly unwilling/unable to invest in genuine traffic calming measures, speed cameras, ANPR or vehicle licensing. 6 people have died this year on our roads – how many will it need to be before any decisive action is taken?
If you need traffic calming measures you’ve already failed. The issue starts and ends with driver training and testing. How many drivers in Cayman have passed, or could pass a European difficulty driving test? Half maybe?
😆😆😆….try 20-25% max.
I did, on my first try! But you are correct, more than half would fail miserably.
Why are there so many cars without license plates on the front? Many are Tesla. Are Tesla drivers exempt?
I doubt Tesla drivers are the issue..
Becuase of money or the autopilot tesla driving feature!?
Some are exempt, police know the usual suspects but don’t want to upset them because of their social status. This BS has been going on for years, just like blackout tint, which is totally legal in JA. So why would a JA RCIPS pull over someone for something that’s perfectly acceptable where they came from???
Unfortunately, the RCIPS/NRA/DVDL are still all using analog methods in a digital world. Much larger countries somehow manage to have a functioning database with details of vehicles owners etc so that fines can be automatically issued. For some reason this appears to be all too much effort for the authorities here. Imagine if speed cameras were placed in the obvious places-it would instantly make the roads that little bit safer enabling the massively under resourced traffic department to concentrate more on those dangerous and DUI drivers. Additionally, the whole vehicle testing and licensing system needs reforming…I wonder how many folk actually fail the driving test??. Until something meaningful is done the crashes (and probably deaths) will continue…time for the Governor to bang a few heads together.
There’s very little evidence that excessive speed has anything to do with the vast majority of crashes. Certainly every crash I’ve witnessed here has been sheer incompetence well below the limit that anyone with a real driving license would have easily avoided; like turning right at a roundabout using the left lane. The big smashes and occasional injuries are obviously often speed related but again there’s little evidence from countries who do focus on speed enforcement that their roads are any safer. The clowns who want to do 100+ don’t care. If they want to race they’ll reccy the road, drive with no licensing, insurance or plates etc…
Anyone who lived in the UK during the 90’s or 2000’s will have witnessed the collapse of driving standards as police focused on automated speed enforcement to the detriment of all else; turns out everyone bored out their minds and dribbling along nose to tail at the exact same speed doesn’t make for safer roads; well duh. Safer cars do.
If you want to make the biggest difference to the number of crashes then insist on a proper driving test and re-sit every 10 years; that’s right make everyone who got their Cayman license 20+ years ago here take an actual real driving test. If you want to make the biggest difference to safety then get rid of all the scrap cars and stop the importation of almost scrap cars and prosecute those who wrap their cars round the scenery for dangerous driving, not speeding. A few years on the bus will calm them down.
In the UK, excessive speed is recorded in just 7% of accident reports. Sadly people who can’t drive conflate driving safely with driving at the speed limit as if speed is the only metric for safe driving.
.
But you’re forgetting that if you hit a pedestrian at 30 mph, they will most likely live. If you hit them at 40 mph, they will most likely die. The limits are there for a reason.
I have lived in Cayman for 25 years and in my view the problem on the roads and in most things in general is that there is no fear among the general population that they will get caught and even then the odds they are prosecuted are slim and even then people drive quite frequently without insurance and with a suspended or no license and in vehicles that have no business being on the road.
It has now become a game among my children to count the number of vehicles driven off the road on a Saturday night as we head to football practice on Sunday mornings.
All of us see things the RCIP seem to ignore. A very short drive along the ETH during the day and you will see:
– illegal and unlicensed trailers
– overloaded pickups and dump trucks
– cars with illegal tint
– various motorized scooters
– illegal dirt bikes
– speeding
– failure to indicate lane changes or entering a roundabout
– following to close
– use of mobile phones
etc, etc………
Just start with the basics.
“Failure to indicate… entering a roundabout “… what exactly does that tell you? Obviously the person is entering a roundabout. No offence but I suspect you’re part of the problem!
It tells everyone else what their intentions are.
LEFT – taking the first exit I get to.
RIGHT – continuing round until I pass the exit immediately before mine then LEFT to show I am leaving at the upcoming exit.
Some drivers do not think this is correct BUT it certainly shows what a driver is doing. Clarity means other drivers can make safe decisions.
https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/roundabouts.html
Where are the police? I honestly dont see them doing their jobs most of the time? No speed traps? Road blocks to catch drunks? Sad!!!!
More people dying alllll the time due to cars than covid….yet we change NOTHING to stop or improve the situation. Little bit of covid though and we modify the entire country. SMH
Spot on. If Gov really cared about preventing people dying they’d be focussing on the roads instead of politically pandering to the anti-vaxxer minority ! We are far more likely to be killed on the roads.
I get what you’re saying, but how is an officer on foot going to stop a car blowing through a stop sign?
That better be one FAST cop!
“Dipatch, a grey Honda Civic failed to stop at the stop sign. I’ll be in pursuit in my Reeboks. Over”.
How about justice for the victims?
My vehicle was hit by a drunk driver in May of this year.
Even though I purchased the police report, it is still not ready and we are almost in October. Because of this, I can’t file claim or sue or do anything until I get the police report.
Why the hell do you have to purchase a police report?
Because somebody wants more money!
Because they want all the money they can get! How long have you been in the Cayman Islands? It’s the CIG way!
I am seriously considering not coming back, even when the borders re-open, the island is becoming a death trap.
😆
You’ll always regret it, just like almost everyone else who leaves or has to leave.
Link motoring offenses to loss of license. Jail offenders who drive disqualified.
Other than that, just hope for autonomous cars to be here sooner rather than later.
There’s also simply not enough of a police traffic department. Traffic is often identified as one of the top three or so issues. Traffic issues are exacerbated by idiots crashing, and selfish driving habits. Invest in at least a doubling of competent traffic police, and things will improve.
Lastly, these cars are 99% automatics. You have to be criminally stupid to crash one.
Not enough of a traffic department? there are over 400 police officers. Why do they have to specially designate some of them as traffic officers, and only they work on traffic offences? Enforcing the traffic law isn’t rocket science – RCIPS needs to get off its backside and get their officers out on the streets enforcing our laws.
I wish people would stop trotting this 400 officers out. It is too simplistic.
The 400 include frontline response, who are often tied up with regular 911 calls, including car accidents. It includes drug squad, cyber crime, armed response, air ops, family support unit, admin elements, custody, community police etc.
Yes, regular patrols can do more. Firearms units should do many more roadblocks etc but the traffic department is there for a reason. It’s specialized because it needs to be. Traffic here is terrible therefore we need a large, competent, and effective traffic dept.
If you want, swap out some officers into traffic if you don’t want more employed, but they are needed!
What are the Firearms units doing when not responding to firearms related incidents, besides strutting through Fosters with weapons galore.
Can’t you effing multitask? You know, deal with any offense occurring under your nose?
Here is an unpalatable question that should be answered. What is the demographic of those at fault?
What is their age? What country are they (originally) from? Where did they train to drive?
It appears clear that much of this issue is imported. Does anyone keep track of the actual facts, so we can holistically address the actual issue (in addition to ineffectual and lax law enforcement).
So many people who pass there Test here would not pass there driving test in there own country.the standard of driving is so poor it’s dangerous every day to be around them .
The guys running off the road every weekend are maniacs and just have a disregard for human life .you should not be able to pass your test in automatic car you should have to pass it in a shift stick as it improves the knowledge of how to drive and requires some level of skill
Same goes for spelling tests.
Their, their, their.
Over there? That way!
Our only hope is that the bad drivers of Cayman will run out of cars before the good, law abiding ones do. Law enforcement is non functional here and always will be for obvious reasons.
About time they bring “real” traffic police to take control of this madness, speeding vehicles are within the worse, illegal bikes all over the place, a rider in an unregistered bike even wearing an ankle monitor in WB, just days ago a car driver was attacked by a bike rider with no registration, and he appears to be doing that all the time, reported to the police with no consequences. This officers seem to be busy just writing tickets to distracted drivers that go over a few miles over the limits, and not minding the real hazards on the roads; maybe a bit of education would also help the ones that can’t even use indicators or just don’t know how to merge into the center (service) lane…
People’s lives are at risk every single day and no serious response from the authorities.
Deal with the starter crimes. It’s pretty clear that the registered owner of a car would be responsible for tinted windows, wheel spikes, license plate covers…
Write tickets in parking lots forcing these vehicles to be inspected or receive a $100 fine. A meter maid on a moped could ticket 100’s of cars a week.
It’s nice to see the new stealth police interceptor to chase down the speeders, but a cash box full of tickets could be written at the hospital four way for folks barely slowing down, let alone stopping. It’s 200 yards from the station, they could send someone down there on foot, maybe the poor lonely fellow who is walking the beat on the waterfront.
Malcolm,
The people that are offending do not read this news feed.
Go get them minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day.
We need more RCIPS in the traffic department
Said it before and I’ll say it again. A dedicated unit of ruthless enforcement cops who can’t even say the word ‘bly’ are needed along with unmarked vehicles and motorbikes. And a three fold increase in fines and disqualifications is the only way for the hard of thinking to learn.
3 dui over a Cayman brunch weekend, still not trying very hard on this front are they…..
In fairness, I see a lot more people at brunch not drinking, and being designated drivers these days.
By no means enough, but it seems the message is slowly getting through.