KINGSTON, Jamaica — Transport minister Daryl Vaz has sounded an urgent alarm after Jamaica’s road-death toll climbed to 223 since the start of the year, branding the trend “a public-health emergency hiding in plain sight.”
Issuing a hard-hitting statement on Thursday, Vaz dismissed the notion that the fatalities are anonymous statistics. “Each number is a neighbour, a breadwinner, a child,” he said, underscoring the cascading grief now rippling through communities nationwide.
The minister’s latest intervention comes barely a month after Road Safety Month, when he first pressed Jamaicans to slow down, buckle up and stay sober behind the wheel. With casualties still mounting, his tone has sharpened:
- Main culprits: excessive speed, cell-phone distraction, seat-belt neglect, failure to wear helmets, and drunk or drug-impaired driving.
- Bottom line: “These are not accidents; they are choices,” Vaz declared. “And choices can be changed.”
To break the cycle, the Ministry of Transport is escalating joint operations with the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Island Traffic Authority and the National Road Safety Council. Expect more patrols, surprise checkpoints and blitz-style public-education drives in crash hotspots.
Yet Vaz insists enforcement alone will not cut it. “Culture beats regulation every time,” he warned, challenging motorists, passengers, cyclists and pedestrians alike to “treat every trip as a life-or-death contract.”
He urged citizens to report reckless behaviour, obey traffic laws and make road courtesy the norm rather than the exception. “If Jamaica genuinely values life,” Vaz concluded, “that respect must show up on the asphalt—not just in our condolences.”
