The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has ap­pealed to all road users to pri­ori­tise safe­ty dur­ing the Christ­mas and New Year hol­i­days, as traf­fic vol­umes in­crease across the coun­try.

The min­istry said road safe­ty be­gins with in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and called on cit­i­zens to work to­geth­er to pre­vent avoid­able ac­ci­dents and loss of life.

It al­so urged mo­torists, pedes­tri­ans and all road users to re­main vig­i­lant, re­mind­ing the pub­lic that heav­ier traf­fic dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son re­quires ex­tra cau­tion on every jour­ney. Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Sen­a­tor Eli Za­k­our urged all road users to make safe­ty their high­est, non-ne­go­tiable pri­or­i­ty dur­ing the hol­i­day pe­ri­od.

He warned that a sin­gle mo­ment of care­less­ness can re­sult in ir­re­versible loss and said im­prov­ing road safe­ty re­quires a col­lec­tive ef­fort in­volv­ing gov­ern­ment agen­cies, trans­port providers and the pub­lic.

He al­so en­cour­aged road users to re­main alert, obey traf­fic laws and co­op­er­ate with en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties to re­duce ac­ci­dents and save lives. Mo­torists were told to obey all road signs, sig­nals and traf­fic lights, ap­proach pedes­tri­an cross­ings, in­ter­sec­tions and res­i­den­tial ar­eas with cau­tion, avoid over­tak­ing in high-risk ar­eas, re­frain from dis­tract­ed dri­ving and en­sure all pas­sen­gers, es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren, are se­cure­ly buck­led.

Pub­lic trans­porta­tion dri­vers were en­cour­aged to op­er­ate ve­hi­cles re­spon­si­bly, in­clud­ing along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, ob­serve all traf­fic sig­nals, avoid un­safe stop­ping or over­tak­ing, drop off pas­sen­gers on­ly at des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas and ex­er­cise pa­tience and dis­ci­pline to pro­tect the com­mut­ing pub­lic.

While pedes­tri­ans were re­mind­ed to use walkovers, marked cross­ings and pedes­tri­an sig­nals where avail­able.