St Ann has been under the microscope in recent times following several road fatalities in the parish. The most recent incident, which occurred in Llandovery, claimed the lives of five people, including a basic school principal, when the driving shaft of the public passenger bus they were travelling in broke, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle, which then collided with the Toyota Rav4. It was then discovered that the driver of the bus was actually the conductor.

“The worst set of drivers I have seen in my many years as a police are the bus drivers who ply the route from Brown’s Town to Ocho Rios. They have absolutely no regard for the road traffic laws. They do not obey the stoplights, they overtake on the continuous white lines, they overtake on the unelevated medians, they overtake on intersections, and they undertake on both soft and hard shoulders.

“They only conform when they see the police present at a checkpoint or observe a police unit in traffic,” Cameron told Jamaica Observer North East.

Cameron said these operators not only show disregard for the road traffic laws, “but that it is also a human factor in that they have no discipline at all”.

“I’ve also recognised that many of the drivers cannot read or write and those who can are not so good at it. And I believe that this is a necessity in order to operate vehicles. The drivers behave the same way they do on wet roads as they do on dry roads. There is no observance or consideration on their part,” he lamented.

As a result, Cameron is urging vehicle owners to “employ people who can at least read and write”.

“Employ people who have developed some amount of literacy, who not only use judgement, because it is not sufficient, especially as a public passenger vehicle driver,” he insisted.

At the same time, Cameron said to mitigate the problem, focus will also be placed on owners.

“I think the targeting will not just be about bus drivers, but also about owners. The owners are to use due diligence when hiring people to drive and conduct for them.

“We have learnt that many times the conductors are the ones driving the bus without the proper training or licensing, and this is evident in the last ill-fated crash. We will have to start sanctioning the owners of buses.

“Separate and apart from that, we have stepped up our road policing operations as to significantly dent the behaviour of the bus drivers. We will be strategically placing police at different points. Drivers may find that they might pass through four checkpoints before leaving the parish of St Ann. We will be relentless and persistent until we can find some sort of consistency and controlled behaviour,” the St Ann Divisional Commander said.

A day after (Thursday) Observer North East met with Supt Cameron, a massive operation targeting road traffic offenders in St Ann was conducted by the police in conjunction with the Island Traffic Authority and the Transport Authority.

Superintendent Cameron reported the arrest of 19 people plus the seizure of eight vehicles with nine registered places being removed from vehicles.

“We (Police, Transport Authority, Island Traffic Authority) started our operations this morning (Thursday) at approximately 7:30.

“I can report that 19 people have been arrested for various breaches of the traffic laws. We have seized eight vehicles – five buses; two motor cars, and one motorcycle.

“In addition, nine registered plates were removed from vehicles for various breaches of the Road Traffic Act,” Supt Cameron said.

He further disclosed that separate and apart from the various actions taken by the police, the Transport Authority also took action.

“The Transport Authority issued 160 summonses for various breaches particularly to people operating public passenger vehicles,” he said.

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