KINGSTON, Jamaica — With just hours to go, the year 2022 looks set to end with fewer road deaths than last year, but only just.

The Road Safety Unit (RSU) is reporting that with 12 more deaths on the nation’s roads during the previous seven-day period, the total number of people killed as a result of traffic crashes this year stood at 477 as of Friday, December 30.

This is ten fewer than the 487 people who were killed in traffic crashes in 2021. This year’s deaths resulted from 416 fatal crashes.

The latest victims include ten males and two females. Eight of the victims belonged to what the RSU categorises as the most vulnerable group of road users. They included five motorcyclists and three pedestrians. There were also two drivers of private motor cars, one passenger of a private motor car and the driver of a public passenger vehicle.

With 141 motorcyclists killed, this group of road users accounted for the most fatalities in 2022.

The top three categories of road users killed were rounded out by pedestrians, who accounted for 104 deaths and drivers of private motor cars, who accounted for 85 fatalities this year.

Overall, 84 per cent of those who perished on the roads were male.

And the RSU said fatal crashes decreased by five per cent in 2022 while fatalities were down 2.1 per cent when compared with 2021.