Two killed in early morning crash in Spotts
(CNS): Police have confirmed that two people were killed in yet another horrific crash on Shamrock Road in the Spotts-Newlands area. The single-vehicle collision happened at around 2:15am Monday when a white BMW crashed into a wall on the westbound lane. The man and woman in the car were extricated from the vehicle by fire crews and taken to the hospital, where they were pronounced dead by the attending doctor.
The westbound roadway going towards George Town is diverted through Hirst Road, while police carry out their investigations. Eastbound traffic is being diverted through Spotts Newlands Road, but drivers heading east are advised to avoid the area and take the East-West Arterial instead.
This stretch of Shamrock Road has become a notorious location for major and deadly collisions over the years as a result of speeding along the three-lane straight highway. However, it has a number of concealed entrances coming directly on and off the road into residential condo complexes and neighbourhoods.
Local residents in the area have been campaigning for some time for police to introduce traffic calming measures or deploy the traffic unit on a regular basis to encourage drivers to slow down. Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart has filed a parliamentary question about this road, which is expected to be asked during this coming meeting of parliament, set to begin Friday.
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Category: Local News
No one knows what caused this latest fatal accident. Could have been sheer speed or distracted driving (phone for example) or driver and passenger could have been fighting (it’s known to happen) or the driver could have nodded off. It may not be related to whether the driver was competently licensed. Who knows? One can only speculate, which is absolutely pointless at this stage.
Let’s hear what the “accident reconstruction expert” Mr. Redden has to offer.
How people drive is a personal responsibility ! speed cameras more police higher fines none of this will stop the poor driving habits , if people are not deterred by the fact that they can end their life or end up with life changing injuries then all else will fail for sure
This is a tragedy. Another one. Again.
And again, at least according to reports elsewhere, the driver is not from here.
When are we going to have a grown up conversation about imported driving habits, and what we could and should be doing to make our roads safe for everyone, and holding everyone to the same reasonable but high and firm standard?
It is sad any time someone loses his/her life on the road or otherwise no matter the nationality. Death does not discriminate. We are all at risk whenever we get in a vehicle. Getting from point A to point B is scary! Driving culture needs a reset.
The point was not their nationality but whether they got given a licence because of their home country licence. OP is assuming foreign licences are either corruptly obtained or assessed to a lesser standard. May be right in some cases. Unfortunately they haven’t accounted for a) the standards ( and honesty – remember that chap who got convicted for test fraud) of our local examiner system b) the huge numbers – given the causes lists – of people who simply don’t other with a licence or insurance.
Jon Jon getting away with possible DUI and reckless driving is what’s called setting a fine example for would be road law breakers. Instead it means anything goes unpenalised if you have connections and a sure thing if you have a hotline to the Premier.
Surely the inaction of the Government and the RCIPS mean that they now have blood on their hands.
What do you want them to do? Follow people home from bars? Stop all traffic after midnight for a roadside sobriety test? Can you imagine the outrage?
The government and RCIPS can only respond to these events. The onus is on all of us to put on our big kid pants and act responsibly. When we F around, we sometimes find out. I’m not saying these deaths were deserved. Hell no. I hate that it happened. I’m saying that likely these folks were culpable in their own demise. I want us all to make better choices, and sometimes those choices are being home safe before midnight.
Constant speed cameras. Effective, efficient and tried and tested elsewhere, for decades. That, and equal enforcement, consistently. All day, every day.
This comment blows my mind, its even more alarming the amount of upvotes it has.
The government can do LOADS to prevent this. More stringent passing DVL license requirements (the UK has 2.9 fatalities per 100k with a driving test pass rate of 50.5%), improved public infrastructure (less dependency to use cars to go anywhere, cayman has nearly a car for every person on the island, ridiculous. In the UK the amount is nearly half), automated speed cameras(Cayman has electronic license plates that are quite frankly used for nothing useful), traffic-calming measures (impeding speeding) etc. etc.
The government can more than be preemptive to these types of situations not just reactive.
Of course they do. They have for years. They have not only failed but actively refused to take appropriate steps including electronic ticketing and detection. Simple steps that would see our laws consistently enforced, our treasury protected, and our streets much safer. But no! Lets hire more people from overseas, put them on shifts that do not work, fail to breathalyze politicians and bleed our society physically and metaphorically.
It doesn’t bother me when dangerous drivers kill themselves because I think that’s one less dangerous driver to possibly kill me when I’m out on the road. Act like an idiot, get an idiots death.
The whole stretch needs to be 25mph, with traffic calming measures to ensure this is the case.
This would also encourage people to use the arterial road. They should also do this in Red Bay, as the amount of cars that turn off and go past Popeyes and then go to the roundabout by Lantern Point is stupid. They cruise through at 40mph plus, by a school and junctions with lots of traffic.
Anyway, it seems a pledge to drive slower, safer etc. isn’t going to cut it. Who’d have thought it?!?
The downvoter obviously doesn’t live off Shamrock Road.
I do, and it’s a nightmare. Speeding every god damn minute, dump trucks jake braking, overtaking.
It needs to be a reduced speed limit. This would have minimal impact on getting anywhere since it’s a tiny island and for about 4 hours a day, it’s gridlock.
I concur. I live on Beach Bay road. GOD help us trying to access the main road; especially if we need to turn right. It only takes a few seconds to let us out but these uncouth drivers couldn’t give a rat’s behind!
As it’s a place where traffic often slows, that junction is ultra greasy from oil and fuel that has been dropped by the slowing, stopping, and accelerating. So, you have a 40 zone with many vehicles going significantly faster, and an inability to recognize hazards or anticipate cars pulling out/across them. Basically, Beach Bay is a cluster. Good luck!
Calling for that whole stretch of road to be turned into a 25mph zone is unrealistic, idiotic, naive and ludicrous.
Calling for speed bumps on that whole stretch of road is also a very stupid suggestion which cannot and will not work, unless perhaps you happen to own an auto repair shop and bought a few container loads of shocks at a wholesale discount.
One and all needs to realize that before one calls for these nonsensical steps to be taken that this most recent fatal incident is not a result of people driving the speed limit in the first place. How this simple fact can elude anyone is almost laughable, if it were not for the fact that it elucidates the levels of nonsensical thought processes which far too many people go by, particularly with the seeming lack of comprehension of very simple cause and effect factors at play.
Camera speed traps make sense.
Ring fencing problem areas with one traffic unit at one end of the stretch, one at each divergent road way, and one traffic unit at the other end of the roadway makes sense. This would also require a level of communication between the officers which they, in all reality, may not even be capable of, but that goes to the real reason why Cayman is in the place it is today but most are not willing and/or able to even recognize let alone broach those cause and effect factors in any consequential manner.
Spike strips in the case of drivers trying to escape, particularly when they are putting all other road users and the general public in danger, makes sense.
A 24/7/365 concealed presence of traffic units posted in the known trouble areas, particularly during the hours known for these incidents to occur, makes sense.
What does not make sense is the suggestion to further constipate the one and only main arterial roadway for this section of Grand Cayman and all points East (a full 3/4 of the island itself) by reducing the speed limit to 25mph and installing speed bumps.This double pronged knee jerk idiocy has been suggested by people who have no concept of reality, the necessary solutions, and/or an understanding of the need for emergency vehicles to be able to get from point A to point B in a timely manner when lives are at stake.
Here is some earth shattering news for the above poster…..The people who are speeding and driving like dingbats do not give one hair on a rat’s buttock about the speed limits in the first place. Did that fact not register to you from the outset?
What is not going to cut it is to create further frustration for all road users simply because the authorities (among a litany of other reasons) are not willing and/or able to monitor the problem areas sufficiently to staunch the flow of those who will disregard the rules of the road regardless of what asininely derived number is put on a road sign.
Please, get real.
Stupid is is stupid does, and whilst one can observe this most recent fatal collision as tragic, it is and was a tragedy of the driver’s own making. At least they did not kill or injure someone else other than the passenger who made their own decision to get into the car with them.
To suggest making everyone else’s life more frustrating, less efficient, less practical and ultimately less safe when the same said jackasses behind the wheel of a breeng breeng ghetto buggy or a Bogus Moron’s Wagon will still be acting the fool in absence of proper law enforcement and law enforcement’s presence.
Your suggestions are not solutions.
A suggestion to dictate the import of 100,000 donkeys and pass them out to each and every road user as a trade in for their vehicles would be a more sensible suggestion than this 25mph/speed bump malarkey.
You’re an idiot.
I bet if you worked out the average speed of Shamrock Road on an average working day it wouldn’t hover much more around 25mph, if at all.
It seems counter intuitive, but slower limits can mean quicker travel, especially when you remove cars weaving in and out of traffic. It would also improve the lives of residents and see fewer deaths and serious accidents. So, fewer road closures.
If you think driving 15mph slower for 5 minutes is going to impact your day, then just spend 5 fewer minutes on Facebook to make up.
Your camera speed trap ‘idea’ also sucks.
It’s too difficult to have average speed checks due to roads on and off the main road. A static camera would merely encourage drivers to slow in a specific zone and speed up again. That’s without going into the problems with identifying cars with no plates, drivers in cars that aren’t correctly registered, and other simple admin tasks associated with out of date databases.
25mph isn’t the deterrent, it’s the fact that if you’re traveling at 50, it’s a $500 fine and probably a visit to see a judge, if you’re caught. People are caught speeding on this stretch, just not enough.
Also, spike strips. Really? you want to see vehicles losing control on a road with no physical barrier between directional flows?
Anyhow, I’ll let you get back to watching Bad Boys or whatever it is you base your policing approach on.
Constant speed cameras are the answer. Slowing as you pass them makes no difference.
I am not beholden to either your ignorance or your lack of comprehension.
RIP 🙏
In Calgary Alberta Canada they have an awfully annoying thing called photo radar operating 24/7 along numerous roads. Drivers exceed a set speed and you’ll receive a $100+ speeding ticket in the mail in a month. This is about the only thing to really stop these tragic fatalities in Cayman and it will drop speeders when they receive those speeding tickets.
How would ‘speeding tickets in the mail’ be enforced here? The failure rate in collecting judicially-imposed fines is ludicrously high even in first world jurisdictions, let alone here where Jamaicans live in multi-occupancy slums, and there is no centralised mail delivery service.
If Caymanians wanted to stop speeding, they could do so in a heartbeat:
1. First offence, immediate CI$ 200 fine. The driver is taken to the nearest RCIPS station to pay the fine and get a receipt (perhaps with an RCIPS officer driving the speeder’s vehicle).
2. Second offence within 12 months. Car immediately impounded, and retained for one month. Released once a CI$ 500 fine is paid. If the fine is not paid within one month (i.e. two months after the index offence), then the owner relinquishes it by operation of law, and RCIPS are statutorily empowered and obliged to sell it off for either resale or scrap.
3. Third offence within 12 months. Driver banned from driving for five years, with immediate six months imprisonment if the ban is violated.
It’s called the Demerit Points System, in the real world.
But as Cayman isn’t a member of the real world, we certainly cant expect a system like this to ever be implemented ,to improve road safety here.
Not just Calgary. Almost everywhere (except Jamaica and Cayman).
Why is that?
time to ban bmw’s?
a bit like honda fits…not safe enough for cayman????…..zzzzzzzzzzz
That’s like saying that particular firearms are worse than others.
In both cases, it comes down to operator error, and not the fault of the mechanism.
Nothing good happens on the road at that hour unfortunately. May they RIP & condolences to their families.