The Barbados Road Safety Association is all for banning the use of cellphones while driving in Barbados.The call for the ban was made again last week when the Royal Barbados Police Force and General Insurance Association of Barbados held a one-day road-safety seminar aimed at coming up with programmes to take road safety into a new dimension over this decade.Stakeholders from the police, insurance sector, and the head of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department all made presentations at the seminar.And now, president of the Barbados Road Safety Association, Sharmane Roland-Bowen has endorsed the suggestion that legislation be enacted that bans drivers from using cellphones while their vehicles are in motion.“Cellphones are a major distraction to drivers and pedestrians as well, and contributes tremendously to the inattentiveness to safe road use in both cases,” Roland-Bowen said yesterday.She noted that drivers are four times more likely to be involved in an accident when using a cell. It’s the cognitive task of conversing and the physical task of handling a vehicle that impedes a person’s ability to drive safely, she said. “Sometimes we need to be protected from ourselves and this legislation will be a big step towards achieving safer roads,” Roland-Bowen said.Along with the proposed legislation, the road safety head said her organisation was also ready for the formation of a National Road Safety Council, as revealed during the seminar by Minister of Transport and Works John Boyce.“Our Government’s commitment to a decade of action for road safety is a tremendous achievement for Barbadian road users. The proposed establishment of a National Road Safety Council with responsibility for coordinating Government, private and civil society’s efforts towards road safety along with the preparation and implementing of a coordinated strategic plan of action will no doubt take safety on our roads to a much higher priority.” The president added that it was time Barbados as a country stopped accepting road accidents as an inevitable consequence of economic success and saw them for what they are – a burden to society costing between one and two per cent of GDP, along with much pain and suffering to the victims and families involved. “Any Government that takes responsibility and puts the safety and protection of its citizens high on its agenda is a Government caring for its people. It takes strong political will as the driving force to improve safety on our roads.”According to the president, the association would also like to see a fully implemented and functioning fixed penalty and demerit-point system in action to deal with the growing number of traffic violations occurring on our roads, many of which are contributing to the number of accidents being reported. “Repeated violators of our road traffic laws must be stopped, punished and rehabilitated. With new roads, new vehicles, new technology, new attitudes and behaviours, we need to see new and revised road traffic laws and sentencing guidelines to counteract the negative display of driving characteristics now present on our roads,” she concluded. (BA)
