Road traf­fic deaths have in­creased by 25% in 2022, with 30 lives lost on the na­tion’s roads, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch Road­way Sur­veil­lance Unit.

The alarm­ing sta­tis­tic was re­vealed in an of­fi­cial state­ment from the Po­lice Ser­vice, which not­ed that for the same pe­ri­od in 2021, there had been on­ly 24 road fa­tal­i­ties record­ed.

In ad­di­tion, the Po­lice Ser­vice is warn­ing that there will be in­creased pa­trols for the East­er hol­i­day pe­ri­od and is urg­ing mo­torists to take greater care on the roads, as two peo­ple lost their lives and oth­ers were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in road ac­ci­dents, overnight.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice ex­tends sin­cer­est con­do­lences to the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and urges mo­torists to ex­er­cise greater care and cau­tion when dri­ving,” the TTPS re­lease said.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Wayne Mys­tar of the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch, warns po­lice of­fi­cers will be out in full force dur­ing the East­er hol­i­day pe­ri­od, with spe­cial em­pha­sis on the of­fence of Dri­ving Un­der the In­flu­ence (DUI) of al­co­hol and speed en­force­ment.

“Dri­vers will face a ‘ze­ro tol­er­ance’ ap­proach this week in­to the hol­i­day week­end,” he warned. “We have seen an in­crease in high­way fa­tal­i­ties in 2022 and we want every­one to en­joy their hol­i­day, but it can­not be at the ex­pense of their or oth­er per­sons’ safe­ty.”

“Let’s do the right thing and obey road traf­fic laws,” he added.

Mean­while, TTPS Road Safe­ty Project Co­or­di­na­tor, Sergeant Brent Bat­son, ref­er­enced a graph­ic video clip cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia of a re­cent road fa­tal­i­ty.

“I don’t con­done such videos,” he said.  “The im­mea­sur­able trau­ma which the fe­male ex­pe­ri­enced at the scene of the col­li­sion is ex­act­ly what we work so hard to pre­vent.”

He added: “We con­tin­ue to ap­peal to dri­vers to do their part to help save lives and keep fam­i­lies to­geth­er.”

Two fa­tal ac­ci­dents overnight

The TTPS re­lease points to two road fa­tal­i­ties which oc­curred overnight—one in the Ca­roni area, with the oth­er in Va­len­cia.

Re­ports are that around 12:30 am, of­fi­cers at­tached to the Cen­tral High­way Pa­trol Unit re­spond­ed to a re­port from the E999 Com­mand Cen­tre of a se­ri­ous road traf­fic ac­ci­dent along the north­bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way in the vicin­i­ty of Ca­roni.

The of­fi­cers ar­rived on the scene and ob­served that grey Ford Ranger had crashed in­to a T&TEC lamp pole on the west­ern side of the road­way.

The col­li­sion re­sult­ed in fa­tal in­juries to the front seat pas­sen­ger, a 44-year-old woman of Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas. The dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle and the rear pas­sen­ger suf­fered se­ri­ous in­juries and were con­veyed to Mt. Hope Hos­pi­tal by staff of the Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices (EMS).

Ch­agua­nas Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to that ac­ci­dent.

In the oth­er se­ri­ous road ac­ci­dent, one per­son died, and an­oth­er was tak­en to hos­pi­tal with in­juries.

The TTPS re­ports that at around 2:15 am, a 27-year-old dri­ver of Ja­cob Hill, Waller­field, was pro­ceed­ing north along the Va­len­cia Stretch when he lost con­trol of his Nis­san Wingroad while at­tempt­ing to ne­go­ti­ate the round­about.

The ve­hi­cle flipped sev­er­al times, eject­ing the dri­ver who suf­fered fa­tal head in­juries.

The front seat pas­sen­ger, a 20-year-old, was tak­en to San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.