JUTC cites over 50% reduction in crashes Loop Jamaica

Black Immigrant Daily News

Despite recording nearly 4,000 accidents in the last five years, the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) is pointing out that it has recorded a significant reduction in crashes involving its buses during the period.

The reduction, according to the JUTC, is because of several factors, including sanctioning delinquent drivers and engaging the police to conduct road safety sessions with its employees.

As previously reported by Loop News, the State-owned bus company’s units were involved in 3,963 accidents between April 2017 and March 2022.

The breakdown of the number of crashes each year over the last five years.

While emphasising that the total number of crashes includes those where third parties are at fault, and/or contributed to the accidents, JUTC noted that an analysis of the data reveals a few things.

“Firstly, that since April 2017 to March 2022, there has been a 57 per cent reduction in accidents. Secondly, year over year, the number of accidents have been trending down from 1,049 in 2017 to 1,033 (16 fewer accidents) in 2018.

“Between 2019 and 2020, there was a 33 per cent decline in accidents with 891 and 543, respectively. While for 2021 to March 2022, there were 447 accidents,” JUTC told Loop News.

“We are coming from a period where the number of accidents was particularly high but have since stabilised, which suggests we are doing something right,” said Corporate Communications Manager Cecil Thoms.

Thoms said JUTC has implemented several mitigation programmes, which are bearing fruit, “and we will continue on this thrust”.

He said these include but are not limited to:

-Constant training and retraining;

-One-on-one dialogue with members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force on road safety;

-Internal accident reduction sessions

-Applying disciplinary sanctions where possible/necessary

“Our goal is to not have any accidents, but this is not an ideal world, and so from time to time, there will be. Nonetheless, we will continue to do all we can to preserve life and property and encourage road users and other motorists to do the same,” Thoms said.

“While safety is our utmost priority, we cannot predict collisions, accidents or incidents, for example, stone throwing. However, we can and have been engaged in several mitigation programmes to reduce accident numbers,” he added.

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