Police aim to help Cayman drive more safely
(CNS): With the RCIPS recording over 4,390 traffic offences between January and September this year, a 12% increase on 2012, as well as almost 900 accidents, the police, in conjunction with Streetskill and the Cayman Islands Motorsports Association, are organising a special safety drive this month to highlight the potential dangers of the road and how to keep safe. The fun family event will include interactive exhibits, including impairment goggles (alcohol simulation eye-glasses), as well as driving skills demonstrations and a more serious element marking the passing of those killed on Cayman’s roads. 'DRIVE CAYMAN – Safety Skill Family' is a free event, with food and entertainment, focusing on keeping the roads safe.
It is planned for Sunday 24 November on Huldah Avenue, George Town, between the Cricket Pitch and Credit Union from 1:00pm.
Chief Inspector Angelique Howell, representing the Streetskill Committee, is encouraging as many people as possible to come out to the event.
“It promises to be a great combination of fun and learning for all ages,” she said. “The committee members are all very excited about DRIVE CAYMAN. We hope that it will have a huge impact on how people behave on the roads and that everyone will go away having learned something new that day. Of course, our priorityis to ensure that people go away with one main thought in their mind – and that’s that they all have a significant part to play in making Cayman’s roads safe.”
Organisers are looking for more people to become involved in making the event a success. Plans are being finalised to showcase classic and vintage cars and motorcycles, and owners that want to participate are asked to email the DRIVE CAYMAN team on roadsafety@gov.ky to register.
A memorial wall will also be unveiled at the event to those who have lost their lives on Cayman’s roads and organisers are appealing to anyone who has been affected by a fatal road crash and is willing to talk about their experiences on video to contact them this week.
For more information visit us on Facebook. To get involved email us at roadsafety@gov.ky.
Category: Local News
What a bunch of whiners! Drive safely and defensively and quit looking for your nanny government to make you safe. You cannot force people to become good drivers by holding a stupid picnic. What a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.
Whoever maintains the roads in Cayman has a hand in this, too. For example, start with putting fresh coats of paint clearly marking lanes and arrows on the main roads. In some sections, these have faded to a point where they're difficult to see, especially at night. Cat's eye reflectors might also help. It's a wonder how tourists manage to navigate our roads in the current state they're in.
Problem is we give license away to people who never sat in a car before.
"Licence". It is a noun. If in doubt look at your licence. It has the word "licence" at the top.
What is official licensing practise here?
The worst drivers I see everyday are mostly on scooters and motorbikes. They act like they have free reign in traffic and cars don't matter they pass between two cars, going the same or opposite directions and cut in abruptly causing others to jam on the brakes. They will go around any traffic with no regard for what color line is pained on the road. If police would stake out the roundabouts, they could stop or a least deter this type of driving.
The police should sign up for this too. They have some of the worst drivers that do not signal or know how to use a roundabout . Not to mention driving with hazard lights on while towing. Hazard lights are for stationary vehicles only. Oh, come to think of it they need people skills too.
Listen don't come talking no crap about we the worse drivers in the world!! Try driving in Jamaica or Hondorus! Good drivers and smooth roads to drive on no problems over there right?
Honestly I think the only way to improve the driving here is to take away everyone's license and make them sit a test before they get it back. The general standard is that bad.
I don't tend to listen to driving policy suggestions from someone who can't spell "licence".
On a per capita basis the denizens of this island have to be among the most badly behaved people on the planet.
It’s like a wild west frontier town complete with shootouts and stampedes.
"With the RCIPS recording over 4,390 traffic offences between January and September this year, a 12% increase on 2012".
Imagine the total number of offences if we the public recorded those committed by the RCIPS?
I am recording them, and everyone else after purchasing a 'dash-cam' recently. It's absolutely amazing the atrocious driving habits caught on video, especially the keystone copper's performances. Is it any wonder so many police vehicles look like a refugee from a demolition derby?? Lane drifting in the roundabouts, failing to signal, talking on their cell phones, you name it. That and ignoring glaringly obvious violations in plain sight?
YouTube, foibles & f@&#-ups on Cayman roads soon come! Watch for it.
The poor driving on this island started to show its ugly face after Hurricane Ivan like so many other pitfalls we are experiencing nowadays. There was a free for all.
Allowing a massive influx of people from different countries, with different methods etc on the road at the same time caused this. Every man and his dog could afford a car after Ivan, half of the vehicles on our roads today were supposedly "written off" by the insurance companies and shouldn't even be on island, they should ahve been crushed and taken away.
Just have to comment on this. The driving here has been terrible since the early 70s. If you were here/born then you might well recall cars "parked" up in seagrape trees on West Bay Road and the banning of large cc motorbikes and mini mokes in the wake of constant road carnage.
The influx of cheap cars was not attributable to Ivan but can be traced well beforehand to the huge numbers of cheap used cars that Japan floods the left hand driving world with every time they bring out a new model cycle.
I once asked a politician why we couldn't limit the import of these cheap throw away cars and was told that nothing could be done because that would upset the car dealers.
I keep begging and begging for them to do this but what I would really like to see is an awareness campaign that involved officers being stationed at various roundabouts across the islands, particularly those around GT and surrounding areas all the way up to the one where Shamrock road starts. They should be there stopping all those that still fail to observe the law and still drive in the wrong lane on roundabouts as this is by far the most common offence I see on the road everyday. People in the left lane turning right and in the right lane turning left, in breach of the law, endangering other road users who abide by the law and almost causing accidents when they inevitably block someone from correctly exiting the roundabout. They should be there handing out tickets to repeat offenders and leaflets showing the correct way to use a roundabout to those who are first time offenders. Education is the key, I agree, but I suspect that most of those who break the road laws will not be planning to attend any events or fun days – better to reach them out there on the roads where you WILL find them.
Right on, 10/46! Lane discipline on dual carriageways, particularly approaching roundabouts, is abominable. If you are in the right (inside) lane, make a right turn at the roundabout, for Pete's sake. Don't go straight on. This is for the vehicle on the outside lane to do. I see it every day, dozens of times a day. Shape up, culprits.
The right lane is the outside lane.
Do you mean the "correct" lane is the outside lane?
If you are entering the roundabout on a dual carriageway and exiting onto a dual carriageway too, you an use the right lane, but only then. Otherwise you are quite right, you should stay on the left if turning left or going straght ahead.
I understand what you are saying but for clarity using the right hand lane to go straight over is acceptable if it's two lanes in to the roundabout and two lanes out. also if there is a sign to indicate it's OK.
You do see a lot of drivers in the right lane on a dual carriageway when the left is clear, and people overtaking on the left as a result, in case anyone's wondering both are wrong.
Actually, the proper use of a roundabout when approaching on a dual carriageway is to imagine a clock face, straight on from your approach being 12 o'clock.
You are fully entitled to approach a roundabout in the right hand lane as long as you are intending to turn at the 12 o'clock point or beyond. This is obviously dependant on the exit at 12 o'clock as should it be a single lane exit then the appropriate lane would always be the inside or left hand lane. Should you require to turn off after the 12 o'clock mark, then you should always be in the right hand lane to avoid the common mistake of cutting off the other traffic correctly approaching in the right hand lane. You should never approach a roundabout in the right hand lane if you are turning before the 12 o'clock position, and never approach a roundabout in the left hand lane if you intend to turn after the 12 o'clock position. The most common mistake on Cayman's roundabouts is cutting across other traffic due to poor lane discipline. The other major issue is lane hogging the right hand lane. In the normal course of driving on a dual carraigeway all vehicles should be on the left hand side of the two lanes, not sat in the right hand lane allowing others to undertake you. This is extremely dangerous and the police need to enforce this aspect of road safety. Roads on Cayman are based on the UK system, but invariably are used as a hybrid of UK/US road disciplines. This causes serious confusion and raises the risk of collision. A mixture of left hand and right hand drive cars are also causing problems with down road vision, and the mixture of indication lighting, (if ever used) is very dangerous. All vehicles should meet the same standard, including light colours and illumination. Add into the mix a variation of driving skills and standards from Cayman and around the world and it soon becomes apparent that Cayman's roads are becoming increasingly dangerous. Having witnessed the standard of driver tuition here, I am not surprised that there are so many accidents. It would appear from following several government instructors over the years that they are totally devoid of any basic road sense themselves, how are you ever going to raise standards with incompetance like that?
I forgot to mention in my above posting that these roundabout checks would be best made at times when people are commuting to and from work – then they will witness first-hand the madness that most of us have to put up with on a daily basis.
The Police should have an impound lot and a small fleet of RCIPs tow trucks (creating several new skilled Caymanian positions). Tag and tow all the illegally parked cars to the impound lot. Illegal tint? Obscured plates? Expired coupons? Got someone on your lawn? Blocking your store? Straddling the Wheelchair zone – just daring you to do something? Tow them away please without notice or explanation. Guess what? If you want your car back, it's downtown. To get it back, it's your taxi fare, plus the prohibitive tow fee, plus the hourly storage at the impound lot, plus the fine for the offense. Every major city in the world does this. It is an expected consequence, yet totally absent here. It works.
It would seem so obvious, but RCIPS and Vehicle Licensing should cooperate and share a common database of plate numbers and vehicle ownership, so that officers could punch the plate number into the system while in the field and find out who they are dealing with then and there, and not days later.
Install red light cameras at intersections to automatically catch drivers in the act of running lights and raise revenue for additional policing. Speeders: speed cams. A couple new job positions are created in the brand new enforcement department to mail people their fines/court summons. These are easy, inexpensive measures that would immediately adjust how people conduct themselves on public roads, create a several new jobs, and raise surplus revenue for additional policing efforts.
Sitting around, telling the public how disappointed you are in the offending statistics doesn't work. Action does.
Yea right.
You na see people tun fool when lil water fall?
Why don't they just keep an eye on the roundabouts instead? They could pull bad drivers over and explain how a roundabout is actually meant to work, instead of ticketing them. It would probably prevent more accidents than anything else. Also suggest they target people running red lights, explain the "keep left" rule where there are two lanes, and crack down on the apalling driving by bus and taxi drivers.
I actually have an honest question about the "keep left" rule… Does it actually apply in Cayman? As in, is it official law/policy that you should follow it? I don't want to waste my time and money on the Road Code since (as far as I know) this is the only thing I'm unsure of, so if someone could answer I would very much appreciate it.
The reason I ask is that I understand the reasoning on multi-lane US highways/etc where keeping right except to pass helps with safety and congestion. However, in Cayman the speed of the various vehicles on a multi-lane road at any one time is fairly consistent, so allowing for frequent passing is not an issue (unlike in the US where a highway can be 60mph and you have cars going anywhere from 40mph to 80mph trying to navigate around one another). Also, in Cayman there are many more exits/entrances on each road that require people slowing town to turn left off the road and people trying to turn left and merge onto the road and accelerate to the speed limit, making the left lane more congested than a US highway where exits are every mile or so maximum.
It just seems to make sense to me that you should actually keep right in Cayman, so that people are more likely to have a clear left lane to pull onto or slow down in before turning to exit the road without forcing the person directly behind or coming up behind (who is not turning) to also slow down unnecessarily. When I'm traveling in the left lane on North Sound Road, for example, people are constantly slowing down to turn off into the various businesses and side roads and other people are also constantly trying to pull onto the main road from those same businesses and side roads (often when it's not completely clear and forcing me to brake!). But if I'm in the right lane I don't have that problem of constantly having to slow down, and people risking pulling onto the road and praying the person coming brakes in time wouldn't have that problem either. Granted, people always speed on North Sound Road so if everyone actually went 25mph it wouldn't be as much as an issue, but other roads that are 40mph have the same issues, e.g. the Esterly Tibbetts highway around the Strand through Governor's Square, and Crewe Road from King's through to the East-West Arterial bypass.
Am I the only one who feels this way?
No the keep left rule doesn't apply in Cayman. I've been pushing for this also as this in itself would ease a hell of a lot of road congestion on dual carriageways.
The keep left rule works in exactly the same way. Your lane rules are the opposite way around in the States because you drive on the opposite side of the road. So no it doesn't make sense to keep right here, it makes sense to keep left in line with the English model – if only the Police would enforce this and stop letting folk clog up the road by using either lane.
Your point is well taken, but only as it applies to North Sound Road. On the dual carriageway, stay in the left lane unless overtaking or making a right turn at the next roundabout.
Oh, and please use your turn signals!
That's because US roads are longer and wider, drivers don't really need to concern themselves with irritations like other motorists. The rule is keep left until you need to overtake or turn right across the carriageway.
I think we need to ban guard rail powered vehicles in Cayman.