A car being towed after an accident on the Portmore Toll Road. (Observer file photo)

THE transport ministry's Road Safety Unit is appealing to motorists to obey traffic signals and traffic officials in order to reduce the number of road fatalities this year.

"Motorists, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians, we need your help to ensure that we attain below 300 road fatalities in 2009. We cannot attain such a feat without your unprecedented support as we seek to practice road safety," Kenute Hare, director of the Road Safety Unit said Monday.

"It is costing our nation over $2 billion to treat persons injured in traffic crashes. We appeal to male drivers to practice defensive driving. If all male drivers adhere to the Road Traffic Act and road code, our quest to achieve the below 300 target in 2009 will be historic."

Hare also urged motorcyclists, pillion passengers and pedal cyclists to wear protective gear and wear light coloured clothing at nights so that they can be visible to motorists.
"Passengers in the rear of motor vehicles - whether private or public passenger vehicles - please wear seat belts, everytime," he added.

Hare was speaking in the wake of two road crashes in Clarendon, which occurred within less than 12 hours of each other on the weekend, which he blamed on "the wanton carelessness of male drivers".

"Blatant disobedience of traffic signs and traffic officials were the root causes of these two fatal crashes along the Sandy Bay Main Road and the Sir Alexander Bustamante Highway," he said. "The drivers involved in these fatal crashes were males. The driver who mowed down the motorcyclist, who was not wearing a helmet on Friday night was driving a public passenger vehicle, transporting a passenger. The driver decided to disobey the police officer - this causing a family to be in grieving because of his indiscretion. To compound the situation, he fled the scene of the fatal crash which he had caused."

Hare, while extending his condolences to the family of the motorcyclist, also appealed to the driver involved in the crash to hand himself in to the police.

"We also extend condolences to the family of the female public motor vehicle passenger who was thrown out of the vehicle because a motorist failed to obey the stop sign at the intersection of the Sandy Bay Main Road and Highway 2000," he said.

Last year, 341 persons were killed in traffic accidents across Jamaica.