Stakeholders urge motorists to exercise caution on roads

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Po­lice and road safe­ty stake­hold­ers say the coun­try’s lat­est road deaths have again raised con­cerns about speed­ing, seat­belt use and care­less dri­ving and are urg­ing mo­torists to ex­er­cise cau­tion on the na­tion’s roads.

The warn­ing comes as po­lice con­tin­ue to in­ves­ti­gate yes­ter­day’s crash in To­ba­go which claimed the lives of two men. That ac­ci­dent came one day af­ter two peo­ple were killed in an­oth­er ac­ci­dent in south Trinidad.

Po­lice Road Safe­ty Project Co­or­di­na­tor Sgt Brent Bat­son yes­ter­day said the deaths have pushed the road toll to 26 so far for 2026. For the same pe­ri­od last year, the fig­ure was 32.

Bat­son said the crash­es were “ex­treme­ly sad” and of­fered con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies who lost loved ones.

How­ev­er, he said what con­tin­ues to con­cern po­lice is that many se­ri­ous crash­es could be pre­vent­ed. He said ini­tial re­ports in­to the re­cent crash­es point­ed to two fa­mil­iar is­sues: speed and lack of seat­belt use.

Bat­son said both dri­vers and pas­sen­gers must take those is­sues se­ri­ous­ly, es­pe­cial­ly when look­ing at the type of in­juries some vic­tims suf­fer in crash­es. He said po­lice con­tin­ue to ap­peal to mo­torists to obey the traf­fic laws, slow down and take their time on the roads.

He said mod­ern ve­hi­cles may have safe­ty fea­tures but they can­not pro­tect peo­ple from every im­pact, es­pe­cial­ly when speed is in­volved. He said speed of­ten de­ter­mines how bad­ly some­one is in­jured in a crash. Bat­son said this is why po­lice con­tin­ue to fo­cus on speed con­trol and pub­lic aware­ness.

“The mes­sage re­mains the same,” Bat­son said.

He said mo­torists must slow down, take their time and avoid be­com­ing too com­fort­able be­hind the wheel. He al­so said the po­lice ser­vice is ex­pect­ed to roll out more en­force­ment equip­ment with­in the next two weeks.

“I don’t want to jump the com­mis­sion­er’s an­nounce­ments but it’s go­ing to be a high-pri­or­i­ty ac­tion item,” he said.

Asked whether dri­vers were not lis­ten­ing, Bat­son said the po­lice have a du­ty to pro­tect the pub­lic and re­duce harm. How­ev­er, he said road users must al­so take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own ac­tions still.

“We can’t have a po­lice on every cor­ner,” Bat­son said.

Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field al­so de­scribed the lat­est road deaths as “very con­cern­ing.”

“Road fa­tal­i­ties and se­ri­ous col­li­sions need to be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly; every life lost is one too many. We need to take road safe­ty more se­ri­ous­ly,” In­gle­field said.

She said the con­tin­ued loss of life is be­ing dri­ven by the ca­su­al way some dri­vers treat road safe­ty.

“The ca­su­al­ness to road safe­ty amongst dri­vers con­tin­ues to dri­ve se­ri­ous crash­es and the in­crease in road fa­tal­i­ties,” she said.

In­gle­field said po­lice ur­gent­ly need ve­hi­cles, speed guns and breathal­y­sers. She said this is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day evenings, when da­ta shows most fa­tal crash­es hap­pen.

She al­so called for prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions at crash sites where se­ri­ous ac­ci­dents take place. In­gle­field said once those in­ves­ti­ga­tions are done, the au­thor­i­ties must fix road and in­fra­struc­ture prob­lems that may cause sim­i­lar crash­es to hap­pen again.

She said li­cens­ing of­fi­cials must al­so do more ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing with ex­ist­ing dri­vers and new dri­vers.

Her mes­sage to dri­vers was sim­ple: “Please slow down. Re­spect the laws for your safe­ty and the safe­ty of oth­er road users.”