The Tribune

• This story orginally appeared in January 9th, 2019

By MORGAN ADDERLEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

madderley@tribunemedia.net

COMMISSIONER of Police Anthony Ferguson yesterday said the number of traffic fatalities in the country is a source of “major concern”, as he revealed that 69 people died in 63 traffic accidents in 2018.

This represents an increase of 29 percent when compared with 2017 — a year when there were 54 traffic fatalities in 49 accidents.

Commissioner Ferguson made these remarks during his annual press conference held at police headquarters yesterday morning, when the media was provided with the 2018 crime statistics.

“I want to focus just for a moment on traffic fatalities which continue to be of major concern to us,” Commissioner Ferguson said. “As you can see, so far for the year 2018, there were 63 accidents that resulted in 69 deaths. Forty-two of the traffic incidents occurred in New Providence, 11 in Grand Bahama and (10) in the Family Islands signalling an increase of 29 percent over last year’s total of 49.”

Commissioner Ferguson said as a result of these concerning figures, 25 new police motorcycles were deployed to assist in road safety management. “Thirteen cycles were assigned to New Providence, five to Grand Bahama, two each to Abaco and Exuma and one each to Long Island, Eleuthera and Cat Island, as we recognised the streets in those areas as somewhat dangerous,” he said.

The majority of these traffic fatality victims were pedestrians, representing 31 deaths or 45 percent of the overall total. Twenty of the deceased were drivers, 12 were pedestrians, three were motorcycle riders, and three were bicyclists.

Of these victims, 53 were male and 16 were female.

In New Providence, the majority of the accidents, 15, occurred in the southwestern district of the island, followed by six each in the central and northeastern districts.

Nineteen of these occurred between 5pm and 9pm, followed by the hours of 3am and 7am, with 17 occurring during that time.

Most victims, 51, were Bahamian and 13 were Haitian. One each was American, Jamaican, Indian, Filipino and Indonesian.

The majority of the victims, 16, were between the ages of 46-55 while 15 were between the ages of 26-35 and 14 were between the ages of 36-45.