BASSETERRE, St Kitts - THE Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force has recorded over 1 600 ticketed offences for traffic violations and one fatality in the Basseterre area for 2013.
This pronouncement was made by Head of the Traffic Department Inspector Carl Caines on Thursday evening (Jan. 16) during an interview on ZIZ’s Prime Talk programme.
Caines noted that the force has not done all that it wanted to complete in the previous year but they have now started to achieve that.
He stated that when it comes to the fight against road fatality in Basseterre, they have made strides in that area with the number of recorded deaths being one.
“I want to say at this time how pleased we are at the department that for last year in the Basseterre area we had one road fatality…only one. And that is a plus because we know Basseterre is where everybody comes into and you would expect Basseterre would have more accidents. But we had a good year in terms of injuries and it was nothing out of the norm…”
In his presentation on accidents in Basseterre, Caines explained that there were only 529 road accidents in 2013, with some 88 percent non-injury.
“For last year in Basseterre we had 529 accidents. Out of that 529 accidents we had 464 non-injury, five slight injuries like little bruises and the finger cuts. In terms of serious like fractures, we had eight and one fatal. For most parts there were fender benders, ‘tinnin’ benders, number plate breaks, and that is a plus.”
He however stated that for the New Year the force is “hoping to have non-injury, no loss of life, no serious and no fatal accidents” and it would be working to minimise these accidents, which would be the result of hard work.
“Hard work in terms of patrols, being vigilant, in terms of taking people before the Court if they break or bend a fender; and that would cause them to be more careful…a bit more mindful of what they do on the road because we believe that most of the accidents can be avoided. They are caused by human error; 95 percent of the time its human error and five percent is mechanical.”
He called for people to be more aware of their actions and surroundings and to take the necessary precautions when driving because the 95 percent human error is due to misjudgment
However when asked what the major contributing factor for those accidents was, Caines said: “I would say not paying attention and at times not being aware of the conditions of the roads. For example, if it is a wet day I would take into consideration that the road is wet and I would have to reduce my speed.”
Caines informed that the force has noticed more persons being delinquent in the area of not wearing their seat belts even though the requisite legislation has been passed.
“We still observe a lot of persons driving around with their cell phones; having their phone in their hand and some of them not wearing their seatbelts. What we do is get out there and we ticket them, or sometimes we speak with them. I must confess that not every time we ticket. What we do sometimes is give them a reminder of the laws of the land and the importance to observing the laws of the land.”
He stressed that they have been issuing a lot of tickets during the previous years, with some 1 600 being issued as at December 31, 2013.
“We have been doing a number of ticketing and taking people before the Court. So last year alone we had over a 1 600 tickets issued and those were for various offences.”
