Police ask for speed cameras to tackle crashes
(CNS): The worsening road safety situation has led to a call from the police for the installation of speed cameras, according to a summary of the latest National Security Council meeting. While Cayman already has a wide network of CCTVs on the roads and an electronic registration plate system, this technology is not yet used for traffic enforcement.
With almost 3,000 collisions on the roads in 2022 and over 1,000 already recorded in the first four months of this year, police have said that speeding is still the main cause of many of the more serious crashes. Last year the RCPS issued 3,063 speeding tickets.
The proposal to use speed cameras that can automatically generate and send out an administrative fine to the driver is provided for in the National Road Safety Strategy. Last year the government began exploring the introduction of speed cameras that can read registration plates after specialist cameras were fitted on the Dart underpass.
“As part of ongoing road safety, the government and the Traffic Management Panel are looking at speed cameras to complement existing enforcement efforts of curtailing speeding along our streets,” officials from the Ministry of Planning told CNS in response to our questions last May.
At the time, officials said this was at the exploratory stage but the concept of e-fining is already provided for in the Traffic Act. However, there has been no further information released about the proposal. The NSC meeting summary says nothing more about the likely rollout or when it might happen.
The summary notes also indicate plans to expand the CCTV system in both Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac to help with both the detection and prosecution of serious crime.
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The cops here are as shite at driving as the majority of the idiots on the road. They don’t indicate, tailgate and ignore practically every violation in the book. They have zero respect for the law and therefore have zero respect from me. Twats.
Just went by a speed check on South Sound. The vehicle in front of me, a very old battered looking Honda Accord with mismatched bumpers, was going suspiciously slow, driver no seatbelt, one brake light out, spewing smoke from the exhaust, one tyre on the rear axle was much bigger than the other side, and it drove like a crab. Guess what? it wasn’t going over 30, so it carried on its journey. It then turned off into a side street with no indication.
This is why things won’t change. Several officers with zero idea of what makes a juicy traffic stop. There would have been at least 3 or 4 tickets, possibly more serious offenses too, but nope.
Only worried about catching “speeders” because that’s the most important. Revenue!
So all of the above concerns bring us back to square one – we need more consistent police traffic law enforcement.
The main problem with poor driving standards here in Cayman is due to decades of near no consistent traffic law enforcement! And the Police themselves set some poor examples! Near no indicating occurs by the vast majority of drivers. The Police are rarely to be seen and if they do venture out they have on the bright blue lights that can be seen from a mile away! All this accomplishes is that perpetrators slow down until the Police pass. It’s a complete mess on our roads! This proposal of cameras is yet another request to throw more money at the problem, instead of the obvious need for more consistent enforcement of traffic laws, by the Police!
I disagree. You see almost no police on the roads ever in the UK and out in the countryside there are almost no cameras either. Despite that they have almost 1/10 the number of serious RTA we do. The difference is that we give drivers licenses to literally anyone regardless of ability. Conversely in the US there are traffic police everywhere and their accident rate, whilst better than purs is far worse the the UK. Guess what, the US license is dead easy, guess what the driving sucks. Same in Cayman. Make the license harder and you improve the minimum standard of everyone on the roads. It’s really simple. Our license is a joke so our driving standards are a joke.
Whilst I agree the test here should be improved, your proposal is decades too late. We could increase the penalties where careless or dangerous drivers lose their licenses and have to re-sit the entire process (with new guidelines, but that will still require consistent police traffic law enforcement to effect. I think it would be a near impossible proposal to outright require everyone currently licensed for years, to sit a new UK based test on a certain date. We agree the driving standards here have become very poor and so things “consistent enforcement” will need to happen for the foreseeable future.
Why not at least introduce a UK standard test now? At least most of the Jamaican/Philippino WP holders will all be properly licensed within a rollover period.
Nothing will change until the minimum level of more drivers improves.
Both the driving test AND the vehicle licensing test are outdated and main cause of appalling driving here.
And NO, as in NEVER, driver training programs in the school systems. EVERY person on a work permit should have to take a written, oral and driving a car drivers test.
But this will never happen till an MLAs family member dies on the roads.
Why on a work permit and not just everyone? The most serious RTA’s are almost exclusively Jamaican and Caymanian.
Biggest problem is exchanging Jamaican D/L for a Cayman one. They should also have to sit an English oral & written test to get a permit because they’re the only ones who mess up drive thru food orders yet claim to speak English.
Not from UK where test way beyond standard here.
I honestly don’t have a problem with a few idiots excessively speeding. Keep an eye on your mirrors, should do anyway, stay in left lane, should do anyway, use the correct lane at junctions, should do anyway, drive defensively, should do anyway. I’ve never once had to take evasive action to avoid crashing with someone speeding but its a daily occurance with the dithering idiots who don’t know what lane they should be in.
Unfortunately for automatic speed cameras to work and be effective, the automatic ticketing must also work. There in lies the problem for the Cayman islands in that we do not have a “normal” direct address postal system locally so where are these automatic fines going to be sent to?
Not everyone has a PO box, and indeed not all cars have up to date addresses registered against the vehicle, so these couldn’t even be hand delivered!
An alternate route could be to have the fines sent to the insurance company registered to that vehicle, but then cross-agency work would need to be evaluated and put in place – and not all vehicles on our roads are insured!
So nice as the idea is floated by officials from the Ministry of Planning sadly its back to the drawing board for them – one would think they would have known all these details already?
Set the fines against re-licensing, rather than the insurance company. You could probably also put in some logic based on the licensing term that unpaid fines X days following the licensing expiration date would generate an automatic court summons to the registered PO Box…
@9:30 – Outsource delivery of tickets to a company (great business for someone) using all info on file to track them down – email, tele, place of work, physical address. Add $50 to each ticket for delivery.
Offenders will be found and ticket placed in hand – similar to delivering court orders for Jury Duty. Revenue would pour into the government’s coffers which could be used to improve our roads.
8.15pm The Courts can’t find them either. Do you know how often a Yardie (main culprits) move and give DVDL wrong adrresses.
will keep asking:
my dashcam records hundred of incidents of dangerous driving every week.
why do rcips not want this footage?
Hopefully this answer will make you stop asking.
First, there are strict rules surrounding the admission of evidence in courts. For multiple reasons your dashcam footage would be complicated to admit into evidence and would also probably require you to testify in court.
Second, and probably more importantly, your footage just shows the car and not the person driving which is a problem for charging anyone.
so the same as a speed camera??????
Yes, the poster is explaining why the police dont care about dash cam Karen’s “evidence”. Many of the same reasons cameras suck are the same.
No, a prosecution relying on a government-operated camera does not have the same chain of custody issues as a dashcam video provided by some rando.
and you’ve been told every time why not. It doesn’t identify the driver, dvdl records are far from perfect so in many cases it wont even identify the owner and its unlikely to be admissible. Lastly your opinion of what constitutes the offence of dangerous driving is almost certainly not correct in law.
so same as a speed camera?
Yes (except they are admissible as evidence) and speed cameras are a stupid idea too. They have exactly the same problems and only measure speed against an arbitrary number not idiotic and dangerous driving which is the real scourge.
More or less yes.
So all of the above concerns bring us back to square one – we need more consistent police traffic law enforcement.
Speed limit should be 70 island wide.
Seems a bit much. ETH and a few other dual carriageways should be 60 but half these idiots aren’t safe at 20 let alone 70.
I’d be happy if we could agree no phones while driving.
The amount of crashes has zero to do with roads, traffic signs, roundabouts, new systems,
Morons are the reason , simple, idiots with no sense
Since the UK has had automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) for years, and it will literally flag uninsured vehicles, vehicles registered to disqualified drivers etc, why don’t they change the systems to work like that here?
Imagine how easy traffic policing would be with instant alerts to suspect vehicles? I guarantee it would remove many problem vehicles overnight.
Of course, they couldn’t update the systems here because of corruption, lack of talent, and lack of will.
Cayman Islands will never have competent law enforcement as it is anti Caymanian/Caribbean Culture. Anticipate bad driving, suicide passers, dysfunctional vehicles, no turning signals, no lights on at night, etc. and you’ll be fine.
Local loudmouth crashed his McLaren on LPH and reportedly blew 2x the legal limit on a brethalyzer test and cursed out the police.
Driving drunk and reckless-a Cayman tradition.
What an idiot. Why didn’t he call Wayne?
I wonder where he got his “license”.
I wonder where he got his car?
He’d have blown under but due to the hot air escaping from his mouth all the time, it somehow super concentrated the alcohol.
The handling and brakes of the Mclaren are phenomenal, nothing like an ordinary car. On top of that the electronic stability and traction controls are in a different league to regular sports cars. How you can lose control of one on the public road is beyond me.
He put the bih in sport mode, floored it to impress his pillipena girlfriend, lost traction in the rear, over corrected and full sent it into the guard rail.
10/10 performance – spit my coffee out laughing when I watched it in the morning. Can’t release the footage yet, sorry, trying get Sandra pay me for it.
For decades the frustrated voters and patient residents of Cayman have consistently asked for protection and law enforcement on and around our neighbourhoods, tourism zone communities, and roadways and all we get are colossal payroll expenses and equipment bills, press release reprimands from senior service providers, and their steady stream of excuses. We are told there is always something they are missing, when it’s really the Will to do the job at all. The RCIPS needs to be shaken awake with a performance deadline from the new Governor. Do your duties, quit, or be fired. Let’s hope the recruiter is already looking for a new CoP.
and yet you vote for politicians who think it’s perfectly acceptable to smash into a CUC pole late at night and weasel out of any consequences. Nothing will change whilst the voters enable and tolerate such blatant corruption in politics and RCIPS. That’s just the cases we hear about. How many times do you think their bobos an bredren get a free pass?
According to the insurance industry, most of our crashes are the result of failure to indicate collisions in roundabouts, including the dreaded outside lane circumnavigation. Speed cameras don’t fix the RCIPS’ refusal to show up and do their job: ticketing the full 2 page repertoire of the Traffic Code. Replace this failing leadership.
More crying from the police because they are just to busy to get out on the roads and enforce the law. Spend more money on things so they can just goof off. Hell they can’t catch the gun toting robbers, can’t catch drunks, can’t get the crappy vehicles off the road, can’t catch speeders and plain bad drivers but the answer is now speed cameras. Immigration needs some electronic means to get the illegal workers off the construction sites, labor & pension needs something to help enforce health insurance and pensions; so happy AI is on its way so all the bodies can stay in the office or just work from home. Maybe we will get some AI for the politicians as well!
Other than spending our money, and self-congratulation, what are they good at? There must be something?!?
What is the proposed ratio of RCIPS staffing redundancies per automated speed camera? If 25:1, maybe we’d consider lightening-up this top-heavy trade…hand in your time sheets, and productivity reports and let’s have a count of who’s pulling and who’s deadweight. Starting with a new boss.
they just got half a dozen new bosses!
and when the cameras don’t work they’ll want lower limits. Be careful what you wish for.
How is this a negative???
Because many of the limits are already low. If you think the limits are too high maybe you shouldn’t be driving.
Im sure speeding does cause accidents but that isnt the only factor. The NRA needs to do a much better job of marking lanes. In many places there is no markings on the edge of the roads, Stripes are very faded and non reflective. At night or when its raining it is impossible to stay in your lane etc. Its hard for locals I feel sorry for the poor tourists.
Yes, road markings are not very good, and in bad weather or at night they can pretty much disappear, but you know what I do? I simply drive a little slower and check my mirrors twice as often. It’s a flimsy excuse when we all know terrible driving and unroadworthy vehicles are what really causes 99.9% of issues.
What are indicators for because very few drivers seem to use them.
Literal signs telling people to indicate, still people don’t indicate. Literal giant lit up signs telling people to indicate, still people don’t indicate.
Our roads are full of idiots.
Because the RCIPS refuse to enforce any traffic infringement other than going five mph over the speed limit and sometimes tint. Selective enforcement is the problem. Even the RCIPS do not use indicators.
Speed cameras don’t really work at night. They also don’t catch the multitude of vehicles driving around without their lights on or just their parking lights. That includes omnibuses and taxis carrying paying passengers after sunset (some of them RCIPS officers!!!). Even with hundreds of full time crime fighters on an island 10×20, this CoP won’t mobilize for the remit he was hired for and therefore needs to be replaced! There should also be an audit of the utilization rate of all these officers who somehow maintain the free time for robust secondary occupations?!
It would be interesting to know how how long ago this electronic license plate system was started and how much was spent on this project thus far and how many vehicles that still don’t have them. What about all the trailers that are being towed with no license plates, no indicators, no brake lights, not insured. Someone is not doing their job.
this would cover about 90% of all those minimum wage driven landscaper trucks. Y’know the ones we see with people perched in the back of pickups and trailers.
Start impounding them!
Count how many vehicles daily you see with no front license plate. Which is an offence not to display. I know of a silver Tundra that has no front plate, for a decade.
Why..RCIPS?
Don’t forget the Tesla owners who are special and don’t need to have a front license plate as it might mess up the look of their car.
I see them EVERY day. I try to defend the police force because I know a few of them personally and I know how hard most of them work, but there’s no arguing the fact that there is no way the traffic police are not seeing these obvious infractions. A license plate tucked into the front dash under a tinted window should not be acceptable and wouldn’t be seen by a speed camera.
And we need cameras to pick up drivers going more than 10 mph below the speed limit!
I would say 5 mph under the limit. If you cannot handle a motor vehicle at the already slow speed limit we have in Cayman, then you should not be operating a vehicle at all. Some people come here from third-world countries and have never driven a vehicle until they get here and it’s obvious.
Doh, it is a speed limit – that means the fastest you should travel.
The road code also states that you should not obstruct the flow of traffic. If you’re driving below the speed limit with a line of cars on your tail, you are definitely obstructing the flow of traffic.
Obstructing traffic could involve a variety of actions, such as driving at abnormally slow speeds without reason, stopping or parking inappropriately, or failing to move a broken-down vehicle from an active lane when it’s safe to do so.
You are certainly a BIG part of the problem on our roads.
This is the stupidest idea. You having premier boasting about a surplus but begging the banks not to increase interest rates. Why not take a pay cut? Waste of money to the public purse. Will be just like the radar and the current cctv?
RCIPS asking for more cameras or at least cameras that work?! What a load of rot! Maybe if they did what they’re paid to do & actually pulled people over for infractions, the driving standards and crime would improve. btw anyone lose their job over the 1st cctv debacle?
They want these cameras because they too lazy.. come here from the east for a cushy life.
Mi cya stan inna hot sun
ok, so now are the police going to pull people over for still having old licence plates or no plates? The amount of old plates I still see on the road is astounding, considering these were all supposed to be swapped at 31 December 2022. And I actually can’t believe how many cars have none at all.
The system will only work if everyone cooperates.
“police have said that speeding is still the main cause of many of the more serious crashes.”
If that is true how many drivers involved in serious crashes have they arrested for dangerous or careless driving? A speed camera nicking people on their way to work in the morning doing 50 on ETH isn’t going to stop the Honda morons crashing into the scenery at 100mph at 3am.
True.. every morning some ediot over takes me just to get one car length ahead and still end up in trafic 100 feet down the road
What complete garbage. Half the drivers in Cayman have never taken a real driving test. You’ll solve NOTHING until you introduce a proper driving test and make those with older licenses given out under the pathetic old/current regime take the new test too. Speed cameras are a solution simply to be seen to be doing something. Accident stats will not change one bit. Every single day between WB and GT I see half a dozen incidences of driving that would be an instant fail on a UK test.
Speed cameras definitely work. Great way to go.
No they don’t. Countless studies, including government, show they don’t… https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3861844/ .
The studies that do, usually by vested interests, invariably fail to take into account reversion to the mean.
All of those wishing cameras on us just ask yourself what happens when they don’t work. That’s right, then they lower the limits because they can’t possibly admit they got it wrong.
The fact is our limits are already low. Easterly Tibbets would be a 50 or 60 mph in the UK and their accident stats are almost 10 times better than ours.
BS, they won’t work here, certain people have immunity. Old boys and their friends are protected. Fines will be selective. Do you really think the likes of politicians who mow down light poles will be charged even if caught red handed by speed cameras? The system is already corrupt, cameras won’t clean it up.
Lodge immunity status
This is one of the great benefits we get to experience with stayover tourism – a bunch of really bad drivers that cause accidents and near accidents particularly when using our beloved roundabouts. SMH
Where can stayovers rent a lowered Honda or BMW or mini trucks, dump trucks, tanker trucks and Voxys?
oh ya ? explain the island lockdown with little or no tourists , absurd amout of accidents.
Yeah it’s the tourists who can’t drive. SMH. How many of the 15 people killed on our roads last year were tourists? While we’re at it how many were European, Canadian or American or for that matter anyone with a real drivers license? It comes back to the same thing every time; we give drivers licenses to people who can’t drive. Until CIG/RCIPS/DVDL can admit this to themselves and then do something about it nothing will change.
You must not drive much buddy. The tourists are in the left lanes of the roundabout and just cut across the other one or two lanes and cause us to slam our brakes on. How’s that for SYH?
of course we all see that but it’s rarely tourists. the only time I leant my car to a Caymanian she crashed it doing exactly that. most the hire cars running round now aren’t tourists.
I drive all day every day and can assure you it’s rarely tourists causing the problems on roundabouts. If you’re basing your opinion on the fact that they are in a rental you must realise it’s mostly minimum wage residents driving them these days.
We can all guess which company is going to get this contract. It will no doubt be a great success. Just like the CCTV.
The lodge will run deep in this contract.
Speeding is just one facet of a host of driving issues here.
FFS, the most obvious one is lack of seatbelt use. If people can’t be bothered to use something responsible for saving millions of lives worldwide, when it’s mandated, then fine their stupid asses.
“Let them be, it’s not harming you!”, well my insurance goes up due to idiots that go flying through windscreens, so it does affect me.
I agree. I’m not convinced it’s even in the top ten list of driving issues!
Its about time they brought this in. High time the rally drivers on this island, with no regard for anyone else on the roads, get reined in.
The proliferation of no front plates means most jackasses escape punishment
I feel we need a period of low to zero tolerance on infractions including;
Speeding, cell phone usage, brake lights out, driving with full beam and/or fog lights on in regular traffic, not indicating properly, poor lane discipline, dangerous driving, red and 4 way stop jumping, driving too close to the car in front, stopping in the middle of an intersection when lights turn red, no insurance, no inspection certificate etc.
The laws around fines and bans and alternative measures such as having to attend driver retraining, retaking the tests, introducing and advanced test etc should all be revisited
But, but that means the rozzers will actually have to work and ticket their bobos.
This would mean the police being out there doing their job. They are never anywhere to be seen.
It is not the speed at fault. It is the driver don’t know how to drive safely and respect other drivers. In Germany they have no speed limit on motorways and they have one of the lowest accidents in the world.
Germans and our people are as different as fire and ice.
Also, the Germans have elite first world roads, which with the exception of the bypass that DART built are poorly designed, maintained and policed.
In Germany most of the population has an education…
That’s a good point, to be honest, road rage is a thing around here, and it is generally not caused by the speeders, it is the inconsiderate trolls that drive down the single lane roads 15 miles below the speed limit with their elbows sticking out the window. This encourages dangerous maneuvers to get around them, and tailgating, unfortunately this element of accident contributor is never discussed or addressed. It is also against the law based on the flagrant nature, the person can be cited for causing a moving obstruction but I’ve never seen the cops enforce it.
Speed kills
You are the problem on our roads. Most people driving slowly below the limit is either intoxicated or cannot handle a vehicle at higher speeds and should not have a license to be on the roads. Yes, speed can kill but so can ignorance.
The second unna install this I changing the 0 on my plate to an 8 with a strip of black tape and covering the RFID with aluminum foil.
RCIPS too lazy to do speed checks where it matters like school zones. Instead you primarily see the shooting fish in a barrel on the ETH which should NOT be 40 but a 50 mph zone anyway.
Anyone ever notice that you never see a radar gun if they can’t stand in a shaded area or the sun too hot? Makes them so predictable.. and now we’ll know exactly when and where to slow down for 100 metres.
Dumb idea that will be an ineffective waste of money – CCTV for millions yet barely helps solve crime. How my car got stolen from under one and unna can’t find it all now?
Where will you get too by doing 50 instead of 40 for a couple of minutes? Will you actually do anything when you get to your destination in the 60 seconds you saved doing 50?
If you don’t drive with your head up your *$$ you won’t need to worry about “changing the 0 on my plate to an 8 with a strip of black tape and covering the RFID with aluminum foil.”
This isn’t to protect us, this is to collect revenue. RCIPS doesn’t care about us – fk em, I’m fighting back.