Over 100 government cars smashed up annually
(CNS): Figures released following a freedom of information request by a CNS reader have shown that on average around 104 government vehicles are involved in road collisions every year in Cayman and almost 20% of those are police cars. Although the information was limited, the RCIPS said that on average it has over 18 vehicles involved in car collisions every year, while other government agencies collectively have an average crash rate of about 86 cars smashed each year. The FOI confirmed that the worst year for the police was 2012, when they had 20 cars involved in accidents. Meanwhile, across the rest of government 2011 was the worst year, when 90 cars were crashed.
Category: Local News
So basically another half a million dollars down the drain. I'm so sick of this place killing me with the cost of living from the government with their reckless attitude and spending.
Perhaps you should try driving on the RIGHT side of the road like most civilized nations.
That would be chaos to attempt to change.
Perhaps you should leave and go to a civilizado country then jackass
They are still learning how to drive on left.
If you want to mimic the French you mean. It was the hubristic Napoleon who ordered that all Frenchmen should carry their sword on the right hand side, as he as a left handed swordsman did. This meant that to pass a man on a horse, you would have to be to on the right hand side in order to draw your sword if needed.
The British on the more pragmatic side, ensured that the overwhelmingly right handed gentleman of the day carried his sword on the left, so passing another to his own left. In other words, a civilised society doesn't make edicts that are clearly ridiculous.
So to the small matter of a civilised country. If you refer to driving on a grid pattern and in straight lines as they do in the US, or if you've ever driven in a European city, such as Rome, Paris, Athens or Madrid, then the term 'civilised' is obviously erroneous in this context. Some of the worst driving on the planet can be found in these so called 'civilised' countries, just take a look at US tourists and their disregard for our traffic laws to confirm their inability to understand that not all roads are straight or have mandatory speed limits.
No, the problem here is that there are too many people driving on Caymans roads who are unqualified to be behind the wheel. Driving standards generally are very poor, but add into the mix those from third world countries, (including Jamaicans and Phillipinos) and you have a disastrous mix. On top of that, add cops who have no advanced high speed driver training or any clue how to drive generally and its a disaster waiting to happen.
If road safety and the protection of government assets were a true priority, police would be properly trained in law enforcement driving techniques, all new comers to the island who are not familiar with UK driving standards should be examined and tested prior to being let loose on Caymans roads. Cayman should stop importing left hand drive vehicles that do not conform to a single standard, eg: indicators that flash Amber and not stop lights that flash red. And most importantly of all, driving instruction and testing needs to be vastly improved for the entire population.
Its not about civilisation, it's about common sense.
At least now we know where some of that money went.
We don't have a Traffic department, and we don't need one.
Appalling. And this does not include all the rental cars that government employees mash up.
Never in the field of civic endeavour have so many achieved so little at such great cost.
Driving in Cayman is fun, like dodge 'ems. Yesterday on Elgin Ave I nearly hit a car that randomly stopped in the middle of the road. They were actually turning left across the other lane but didn't bother moving over so anyone could get past, or indicating. Guess who was at the wheel? A uniformed police officer!
Considering the standard of driving and that there seems to be about 500,000 employees at the civil service and all of them apparently get at least 3 vehicles per family member and unlimited free gas to drive around I think 100 crashes isn't too bad.
Why the heck do the RCIP have left hand drive cars? This is the craziest thing I have seen.
…Which begs the questions:
How many cars are out there-and why?
And – why so many large trucks and 8-cylinder gas-guzzling SUVs, with engines constantly running even if parked for an hour!-or making school runs?
Wow-if this is what businesses did…
Caymanians can't drive, since there is no driving school here and most kids learn to drive on x-box and playstation.
They also copy the driving habits of the worst drivers in the world, Jamaicans.
What can you expect ??
Please stop your ignorant comments. There re driving schools here, and like everywhere else there are good drivers and bad. Many of the worst drivers are not from here.
Sure blame the expats ……….. standard cayman bigot repost!
Nice little soundbite and may wrile up the tribes and the great unwashed …………. but do you really believe this will solve any problems? Damn, do you even care?
I am a Caymanian and I will put my driving skills & habits up against yours any day. Quit generalising. There are bad drivers of all nationalities on our roads.
Unfortunately most of them seem to work for gowerment.
Ok, meet me on the M25, south Mimms services, UK, on Monday at 0700. First one to Woking station in two hours wins.
If you both take two hours surely it will be a tie.
I thought so!!!
Your comments confirm.
Its not generalisimg to say that the level of skill needed to drive in Cayman would not be as high as when driving in a country of. 60 million people with complet road systems.
And that 11.24 is half the problem. Everyone i meet is a perfect driver in their own imaginations. Statistics tell us otherwise.
Your driving skills against mine, that should be interesting considering Caymans lack of quality instruction and examination, no high speed driving tuition or Institute of Advanced Motoring.
I doubt very much if your standard of driving can match the vast majority of UK drivers, even at a basic level.
Making such a blanket statement about an entire population is ignorant.
While I am in agreement with you, the expats are all saying CAYMANIANS are uneductaed and lazy. Blanket statements are dangerous and for lazy people that dont want to seperate out the facts. There are Jamaicans that drive bad but also Caymanians, Americans etc.
"the expats are all saying CAYMANIANS are uneductaed and lazy. Blanket statements are dangerous and for lazy people that dont want to seperate out the facts." A blanket statement criticising blanket statements – lol.
But strangely enough true.
I tell you what… if you learn to drive in Jamaica, you can adapt to any situation in any country in the world. They may take the road rules as "suggestions" but make no mistake, Jamaicans can drive.
Most laws are “suggestions” to many in that group, it seems.
You have a point. You are safe in the Jamaican's car but not the any of the other cars on the road. with them!!
Please stop talking shit.jamaicans are the worst drivers in the world,they definately don't use thier indicators,and they refuse to put on thier lights,unless its pitch black.you check the next time you are on the road,especially this time of the year with short days,or when it rains,you can always tell if its a yardie driving
Pretty darn good record, I'd say!!
Pull over folks, pull over far. There's a cop behind you.
No surprises here, publicly-owned vehicles seem to be driven by lunatics. I was nearly taken out by one on a roundabout – the woman driving it didn't try to slow down, she just drove straight out in front of me.
That is a fairly alarming statistic, considering there is no winter here. It does go hand-in-hand with the probable IQs employed in this profligate drain on the country.
That sort of FOI is telling 1/2 the story.
one would expect the police, planning pwd, doeh vehicles to have a higher rate simply because of the hours on the road.#
do an FOI of miles of miles traveled per year. divide it by the accidents and then you have accidentsper 100 miles or whatever scale fits.
If you have a depatrtment that does 200 miles a year and had three accidents, then you have a proper statistic. Remember cause and effect.
The cause is the miles driven and the effect is the accident.
That is the kind of self serving, stupid response we have come to expect from the Cayman denial squad. I drove a public service vehicle for 10 years on UK roads and never had anything more than a minor bump, usually in car parks and from idiots who can't get their fat arses in their car door without it opened fully.
No, it is the standard of driving that is questionable on Cayman, and it applies to all drivers.
The cause is very poor driving, the effect is vehicle and human damage.
I can understand why police cars are involved in accidents, but what's wrong with the other 80%? They never have to exeed the speed limit. How many people, excluding cops, are driving government vehicles?
16.22, indeed, it would seem that the only thing that the CS can manage quickly is the fine art of car crashing. Everything else takes months or years or not at all.
You couldn't make it up!
Again, because there are no consequences.
DEH has a 100% rate in Little Cayman, the last one only a couple of nights ago, so 2 out of 2 vehicles looks like 100% to me.
Any possibility alcohol might have been involved? Driving a govt. vehicle at night, from one party to another?
DEH must be a great place to work…
What a surprise, government responsible for a large proportion of all accidents- and we know why, dont we?? No accountability…make the drivers pay the first CI$1500 of any claim from their own pockets…problem will go away
Police cars are justified. When they chase perpetrators it is understandable. For everyone else it is not.
Not when they are driving at high speeds without any form of advanced driving or high speed pursuit tuition. The RCIPS doesn't only employ cops from Cayman, they hire from all over the Caribbean, yet not one of them will have the requisite qualifications expected of a UK police officer before taking a patrol car out on patrol. Add the mind numbingly stupid idea of putting these people in a super charged vehicle and look out world, Caymans got its own unguided missile.
Some of the worst driving of official vehicles is undoubtably the police themselves, the CoP should get a grip on his staff and ensure that they conform to the very high standards expected of patrol officers. He should also make them personally accountable for damage caused through carelessness or dangerous driving and suspend their asses if they don't shape up.
The statistics of their boats is much worse
Are the Governors cars in these figures? Mashed up the Rolls Royce when the Ritz was being built, now the Town Car mashed up too.
That's not bad considering government has over 5000 employees. I only have 1 wife and she hit her car 3 times last year.
then stop running her over
so funny!!!!
Does she work for government?
If the drivers were made to be more responsible there would be less accidents. Too many times they are sitting behind an new car for the first time in their lives. If it was their own vehicle wouldn't they be shining it and paying attention to every little scratch or dent. Come on public officers, treat government vehicles just like they were your own or better.
Stop wasting tax payers money, buying new cars for incapable persons to destroy. It not only results in less vehicles forpatrols or carry out needed maintenance, but increases insurance premiums as well as claims. Let the incapable drivers bear half of the expense for repairs. They would be act more responsible thereafter.
that is nothing new but what action will be taken to those who wreck these cars!
11:02, they usually get a Promotion…
It is difficult to form an opinion on this since we don't know how many government cars are out there. We also don't know what percentage of non-government cars are in accidents…so these stats are pretty much useless. Thanks CNS reader…
It's hardly news that we have bad drivers in Cayman… anyone who has been on a round-a-bout knows this from very personal and often very scary experiences. As we're all clear that many drivers in Cayman (especially taxi drivers) should have their driver privaleges revoked (permanently) it is of no surprise that the Islands biggest employer of Caymanianas also has the biggest incidences of company cars being written off.
I'm sorry I can forgive the police, but the rest of them need to go back to dirver's education class. What % of government vehicles is this? The average driver is involved in maybe 1 or 2 accidents in their lifetime so this seems quite high.
Well now we all know why bad driving and outright dangerous driving is tolerated on the roads. Clearly the police are no better and would have to recognize bad driving.
WOW…..SMH.
This is appalling but not surprising. While accidents are just that (one would hope no one is willfully destroying Government vehicles), questions should be raised about the use of Government and SAGC vehicles and their need to be on the road at certain times, in the first place.
I know of one SA which had strict rules about usage of its vehicles and documenting same but I've recently observed some of its vehicles in various parts of the island after work hours and on weekends – clearly personal usage. It's not inconceivable that those rules may have been thrown aside, as is common when there is any change of leadership in the public sector – throw out the "old" just for the sake of change, whether or not the "old" is legitimate. Alternately, perhaps the "new" does not have a handle on this matter and staff are abusing existing rules without consequence.
Again, its a matter of accountability and consequence, of which there is little in the public sector.
Those statistics are shocking!
Thats how you get a new car I wonder how many were being used at the time for personal road trips?
It makes me ill to see a family fueling up at the govt pump for free only to take a trip to rum point
i get even sicker when i see them pulling there jetskis and boats
it's one of the perks of working for government, not only do you get your jet ski filled up for free, You also have time to use it as you're not working 80+ hour weeks like in the private sector.
Post a picture. (Or specific date-time that it can be querried.) Otherwise you have no credibility. – Family fueling a vehicle at the Govt. pump with their jetski's hooked up. (Which is what you implied.) Not believable.
Totally believable! And we can see why you are concerned.