PRIME Minister Andrew Holness said that the upcoming revised Road Traffic Act will take into consideration more safety features and that the Government will be looking at the implementation of technology in managing traffic, such as a camera system for tracking the speed of moving vehicles, among other important elements.

Holness was speaking at a special function held to mark the fourth United Nations Global Road Safety Week (May 8 – May 14) held at Jamaica House on Wednesday.

The event — which had in attendance various local and international road safety and traffic representatives such as Jean Todt, UN special envoy for road safety; and Zoleka Mandela, granddaughter of former South African leader Nelson Mandela — was staged to help shed light on the ongoing global #SlowDown campaign.

The campaign seeks to increase understanding of the dangers of speed and generate action on measures to address speed, thereby saving lives on the roads. It also calls for urgent action around speed management to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50 per cent by 2020 — the target established in the Global Goals for Sustainable Development for the next 15 years (2030).

The prime minister, before starting his address, brought attention to the presence of second-form The Queen’s High School student Nneka Thomas who, due to a road accident in 2014, had her right leg amputated.

“Today is a call for action for countries to speed up the process of saving lives by slowing down on our roads. By the involvement of certain key people here with us today, it is a clear signal that we are serious about taking the fastest route to action on this issue,” Holness said in his address.

He said that, undoubtedly, road safety is a priority for Jamaica and indicated that in his recent budget presentation he focused on a very important role of Government, which is to preserve life and to ensure every citizen can enjoy the inalienable right to life.

The PM said road fatalities could be counted as being among the 10 causes of death, but highlighted that Jamaica is seeing some reduction where this is concerned.

“We want to make it (reduction) sustainable, we want to make it a systematic reduction, therefore we have examined the problem in two ways — there are things that Government can do and there are things that people can do,” the prime minister told attendees.

“We’re on an exercise to improve our roads; we are building more highways with better road services. It means that motorists can use the roads much faster than they could before and also means that the Government has to, from the outset, design our roads with safety in mind,” he continued.

In addition to the implementation of a camera system, the PM pointed out that geographical information system data has enabled them to know where crash hotspots are as well as areas with the greatest probability for accidents to happen, and so they can know where to enforce safety measures to reduce the number of crashes.

He said at least half the crashes have pedestrians or motorcyclists involved, and stated the numbers have shown to date that 313 motorcycles have been seized.

“I want to reiterate the appeal made earlier that motorcyclists and pedestrians should make themselves very visible, and we are contemplating within the new Road Traffic Act some measures to ensure that motorcyclists are identified, which would mean that their helmets should have identifying marks which could include the licence plate of the motorcycle itself and the vest could have the licence plate on it as well,” Holness said.

He said, however, that while the new Road Traffic Act will take into consideration far more safety features than the previous one, even with all the enforcement they do, the variable over which the Government doesn’t have absolute control is that of people and their behaviour.

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/auto/pm-holness-says-slow-down_98489?profile=1052

JEAN Todt, the UN special envoy for road safety, says if countries are to succeed in reducing traffic deaths and injuries, they have to tackle the issue of excessive and inappropriate speeding, which he said is the biggest factor in the cause and severity of collisions.“We know that just a five per cent reduction in average speed can reduce the risk of fatal crashes by 30 per cent. Speed kills. If we slow down we save lives. This is the message that we have to repeat again and again,” the UN special envoy told Wednesday’s function to mark the fourth United Nations Global Road Safety Week at Jamaica House in Kingston.

It was hosted by Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) in partnership with the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) Foundation. The event, staged to highlight the ongoing UN #SlowDown campaign, seeks to increase understanding of the dangers of speed and generate actions on measures to address speed.

Todt, who was accompanied by granddaughter of former South African leader Nelson Mandela, Zoleka Mandela, who serves as the ambassador for the Global Initiative for Child Health & Mobility, touted ‘slowing down’ as the vaccine needed to combat road deaths.

He added that the message to obey the speed limit by Olympian Yohan Blake, who is an ambassador for the FIA High Level Panel for Road Safety and ‘3500 Lives’ campaign, has already been launched in more than 30 countries and 600 cities around the world.

The campaign message, he said, will be seen more than one billion times in this phase of the roll-out, and by the end of 2017 they would have reached 70 countries with vital messages on drunk driving, wearing motorcycle helmets and seat belts and not using mobile phones while operating a vehicle.

“Underlying the [UN] 3,500 lives campaign is a crucial political message. It is a message that in my role as the secretary general’s special envoy for road safety, I have been talking to presidents and prime ministers, and transport and health ministers across the world,” Todt said.

“We know how to fix the problem, we have the solutions. We have the mandate in the sustainable development goals, so we need the political commitment and the leadership to make it happen”.

Mandela, in her presentation, also stressed the need for more action to be taken against speeding, adding that actions should be taken urgently for the protection of children and young people.

“Each day 3,000 children are killed or injured all around the world on our roads. This number is scary, it’s deeply shocking and I think we are all in agreement that it is completely unacceptable. The scale of this crisis is bad enough, but what I find even more shocking is how little is being done to prevent it,” she said.

She added that there are solutions but, too often, they are not being put in place. She said that measures needed to save lives are simple, such as ensuring safe crossings for children going to schools or sidewalks to separate pedestrians.

Mandela gave a recent example from her country where almost 20 schoolchildren were killed when the bus in which they were travelling collided with a construction truck and both vehicles burst into flames with the children trapped inside the bus.

“As a mother whose daughter was tragically killed by a speeding drunk driver, there are no words to describe the unexplainable and excruciating pain of having to bury your child or having to have a closed casket as a result of the injuries sustained not only to their face, but to their body,” a visibly emotional Mandela stated.

“The loss of a child is a wound that never heals and we are left constantly wondering how much more you or any parent can endure, that pain you have to live with for all your life,” she added.

The road safety advocate said the situation is not unique to her or her country, but is repeated around the world as millions of children face the same horror every day.

She called for renewed action, especially from the political directorate, to make roads safer in Jamaica and around the world, as she quoted from her her grandfather: “We must not despair. We must not accept defeat. We must not forget that it is in our power to change the world.”

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/j-8217-cans-urged-to-slow-down-save-a-life_98488?profile=1373

“It was not pretty, but we won and will move on to the next round,” said a happy trainer, Patrice Trudeau, on Wednesday night at the Chinese Benevolent Association auditorium, after his boxer, Canada’s Dave Leblond, won by a majority decision over Jamaica’s Nico Yeyo to earn a place in the second round of the Wray and Nephew 2017 junior middleweight competition.

In a contest that saw a lot of holding by both boxers, and for which they were both penalised by referee Owen Nelson, Leblond had the edge and was ahead on two of the judge’s scorecards at the end. Judge Lindell Allen from Jamaica

47-45, and Canadian judge Jeremy Hayes, 48-44, voted for Leblond, while Jamaican judge Clifford Brown scored the fight a draw at 46-46.

On April 19, Leblond was defeated by Jamaican Tsetsi Davis in the third week of competition in a very close fight. Leblond appealed the decision, but it was thrown out by the Jamaica Boxing Board. His Canadian colleague, Ryan Wagner, who should have fought Yeyo last Wednesday, did not pass his medical examination, however, and looking for a substitute for him, the promoters gave Leblond the nod.

Leblond grasped the opportunity and dug deep to fight off Yeyo, who was making his professional debut and came away with the victory.

UNPREDICTABILITY

Yeyo’s unpredictability came to the fore on Wednesday. He is a mercurial fighter who either fights brilliantly or wildly, and he gave examples of both on Wednesday.

The contest deteriorated after the opening round as there was very little positive action and the restless crowd booed at times to show their frustration.

There was a lot of holding by both men in the final round and Leblond had one point deducted, and Yeyo, two, for this offence.

Yeyo said afterwards that in the heat of the moment, he had “deviated from the instructions given” by his corner, and his trainer, Earl Foskin, was certain that “if he had followed instructions, he would have won the fight”.

Their plans fell apart, however, and Yeyo lost his first professional fight, while Leblond gets another opportunity to vie for the title and the top prize of $2 million or the runner-up prize of $500,000, third prize of $250,000, or fourth $200,000.

In amateur action, it was also Jamaica versus Canada. In the first bout, Canadian Joshua Frazer defeated Damion Williams from the Jamaica Defence Force on points, while in the second bout, Jamaica’s Janathan Hanson had a split-decision victory over Canadian Jake Daoust.

Source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/sports/20170512/unimpressive-victory-leblond

With 115 persons killed on the nation’s roadways since the start of the year, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has made a commitment for Jamaica to slash in half the number of fatal crashes by the year 2020.

“The Government of Jamaica is making this commitment, not a promise, but a commitment, to reduce our road fatalities by 50 per cent,” Holness said earlier this week at the launch of the fourth United Nations Global Safety Week campaign, which runs from May 8-14.

Holness, who is also chairman of the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), noted that he would be taking special interest in the new Traffic act, which is being hammered out by Transport Minister Mike Henry and his team.

“We should have this new act very soon, and I will be pressing Minister Henry to get this to Parliament for its passing as quickly as possible,” said the prime minister.

The 50 per cent reduction target was established under the World Decade of Action for Road Safety, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2011.

STAGGERING NUMBER

Echoing this year’s theme, Save Lives #SlowDown, Holness said that it was the Government’s obligation to see to the safety of all Jamaicans.

He said that statistics provided by the island’s traffic department show that approximately 184,566 tickets have been issued by the police up to May 5, an increase of 24 per cent over the same period last year.

Three hundred and seventy-nine persons were killed in fatal crashes on Jamaica’s roads in 2016, a decrease over the previous year in which 382 persons perished.

Zoleka Mandela, ambassador of the Global Initiative for Child Health and Mobility and granddaughter of the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, made an impassioned plea to reduce speeding worldwide to ease the carnage.

“Worldwide, more young people are killed on the roads than from any other cause of death. Each day, 3,000 children are killed or injured on the world’s roads. This is a staggering number and it is totally unacceptable,” Mandela stated.

The United Nation Special Envoy for Road Safety Week, Jean Todt, urged the use of speed management, which he said is a “vaccine” that can prevent injury to all, including children.

paul.clarke@gleanerjm.com

Source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20170512/save-lives-slowdown-pm-commits-cutting-road-fatalities-half-2020

Dave Leblond, the Canadian boxer who lost by split decision to Jamaica’s Tsetsi Davis, returns to the Wray & Nephew 2017 junior middleweight series tonight, to fight Jamaica’s Nico Yeyo, because of a twist of fate.

Yeyo was scheduled to meet another Canadian, Ryan Wagner, but Wagner is reported to have failed a medical examination last week and is not eligible to fight tonight. The bout, which will be over five rounds is scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on Television Jamaica.

Because of the outpouring of support for Leblond following his close loss, the promoters decided to bring him back into the series, and he declared on his return to Jamaica on the weekend, that he is “a very happy man”. Leblond lost to Davis by split decision, and although it was accepted that the fight was a very close one, he filed an appeal with the Jamaica Boxing Board. The appeal was, however, thrown out.

PROFESSIONAL DEBUT

Tonight, in the sixth week of competition, he goes against a Jamaican boxer who is making his professional debut, but has declared himself yesterday, as being “ready for the challenge”. When Yeyo heard that Leblond was to be his opponent, he was concerned that “a fighter who lost is returning” but word is that he has accepted the fact that it is going to happen, and is preparing himself mentally for the fight.

Leblond, whose record is one win and one loss, showed in his fight against Davis that he is a good all-round boxer, and his trainer, Patrice Trudeau, said after the Davis fight that “it did him a world of good, and put him in good stead for his next fight”, which he said then was scheduled for June. This is now happening, however, and they were “pretty confident of victory” yesterday.

Yeyo has had about 25 amateur fights, and on his night, he can perform brilliantly. One never knows what to expect from him, however, so one will have to wait to see which of his many facets will be on display tonight. It should be a keenly contested affair.

In the bouts that precede the professional bouts, two amateur boxers from Canada, welterweight Joshua Frazer and middleweight Jake Daoust, are scheduled to go against Jamaican opponents.

Source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/sports/20170510/leblond-back-contender-clash

Team Canada’s Dave Leblond, who already has a loss in the Best of the Best Wray and Nephew White Overproof Rum Contender Boxing Series, will return to the ring against debutant Nico Yeyo at the Chinese Benevolent Association auditorium tonight.

The programme opens at 8:30 pm with an amateur card with Damion Williams of Jamaica fighting Joshua Frazer from Canada in the welterweight division, and Jonathan Hanson of Jamaica going up against Jake Daoust from Canada in the middleweight division.

The main event is scheduled for approximately 9:45 pm.

Leblond had his appeal in the split-decision loss to Team Jamaica Tsetsi Davis weeks ago turned down, but will take the place of Ryan Wagner after the Team Canada number-three seed failed his medical to fight Yeyo.

There was an outpouring of support for the Canadian in his fight against Davis, which many thought he had won. His return to the contest, if good enough, could see Leblond possibly facing Davis later in the competition in a rematch.

— Hurbun Williams

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sports/leblond-gets-second-bite-of-contender-series-cherry_98313?profile=0

UNITED Nations Special Envoy for Road Safety Jean Todt will join Jamaicans in marking the fourth United Nations Global Road Safety Week, which will be observed from May 8 – 14 under the theme ‘Slowing Down Saves Lives’.

The main event of the week’s activities will be held on Wednesday, May 10 at Jamaica House, where Prime Minister Andrew Holness, who is also the chairman of the National Road Safety Council, will deliver the opening speech.

Todt, a French motor sport executive and former rally co-driver, will deliver the keynote address at the event. Zoleka Mandela, granddaughter of former South African leader, Nelson Mandela, who serves as the ambassador for the Global Initiative for Child Health & Mobility, will also address the event, which is a joint initiative of the National Road Safety Council and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Todt, who was appointed by then United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as special envoy for road safety in 2015, will throw his support behind Jamaica’s efforts to reduce road fatalities by launching action through the ongoing campaign: Save Lives – #SlowDown.

The #SlowDown campaign seeks to increase understanding of the dangers of speed and generate action on measures to address speed, thereby saving lives on the roads. It also calls for urgent action around speed management, to reduce projected road traffic deaths and injuries by 50 per cent by 2020 — the target established in the Global Goals for Sustainable Development for the next 15 years.

Wednesday’s Global Road Safety Week awareness event will culminate with the symbolic signing of an open letter by Prime Minister Holness, urging action on reducing and enforcing traffic speeds to a level safe for children everywhere, as well as prioritising low- speed zones in residential areas and near schools.

Other activities, planned by a committee established by the prime minister and co-chaired by the ministers of transport and mining and health include road safety messages from the prime minister to be read in churches and schools, a ‘Slow Down Day’, certificates to recognise the work of school wardens, town hall meetings, and a road safety jingle.

The United Nations has continued to support Jamaica in its bid to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50 per cent by 2020, because of the implications it has for the development priorities of the country.

Data has shown that a country can lose up to five per cent of its Gross Domestic Product as a result of road fatalities and injuries. Global Road Safety Week and the Save Lives #SlowDown campaign are expected to provide an opportunity for the National Road Safety Council and its members to intensify work in the areas of public education, research, data collection, and legislative support that will allow Jamaica to reduce road fatalities to under 300 annually and meet the 2020 target.

Due to various multisectoral initiatives implemented, buoyed by the eventual success of the Save 300 Lives programme implemented in 2008, Jamaica experienced a declining fatality rate for two decades down to 2012, when 260 deaths were recorded. This is coming from a high of 456 deaths in 1975 and 444 in 1991. Since 2012, however, there have been some challenges causing a reversal in this downward trend, leading up to 382 deaths in 2015 resulting from a historic spike in motorcycle deaths.

This upward trend continued into early 2016 but began to see a reversal due to intervention at the community level promoting motorcycle safety, which resulted in 379 fatalities being recorded for that year, down from 382 in 2015. The downward trend has continued in 2017, with a 20 per cent decrease in fatalities, to date, compared with the previous year.

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/focus-on-speeding-as-jamaica-observes-global-road-safety-week_98101

Destitute man to receive house ahead of Food For The Poor Jamaica’s 5K

For the last 13 years, Berris Mighty has endured more hardship than any man should bear. His is a story of poverty, homelessness, trauma and despair. But the man from Redwood, St Catherine, harboured a mighty hope that one day his living conditions would improve.

That day arrived with the helping hand of Black Ink Marketing Solutions Limited which donated the funds to Food For The Poor (FFP) Jamaica to construct a two-bedroom house for Mighty and his family.

Executive Director David Mair shared that: “The charity plans to construct 100 houses for the less fortunate through funds raised from its upcoming 5K Run/Walk event on Saturday, May 13,” so that more persons such as Mighty, can realise their dream of having a comfortable place to call home.

According to Mighty, he has always tried to live an honest life, but things started getting bad for him when his foot was broken in a car crash in 2004.

“Mi used to work and live on a fowl farm in Bog Walk, because di people dem who me did a work for have a place fi dem workers stay. One evening after work, mi go shop go buy someting to eat and I was riding a bicycle. On my way back from the shop I got hit by a car, and things start get worse from dere so. After mi take the cast off mi foot, di people dem fi di place seh mi need fi find somewhere to go, because I am not working for dem anymore, as mi foot did bruk. Mi lose di work,” Mighty said in an interview recently.

He said one day when he left the premises and was in search of a new place to live, he was evicted.

“When mi did a check if mi could get anywhere to stay, rain start fall and yuh see when me go back in di evening, mi come find mi tings dem outside. Rain wet up everyting, even the food weh mi cook! Mi come back and water in di pot dem,” he recalled.

He said at that point he took to the streets with his girlfriend, who vowed to stay with him.

“During dem time deh, tings gone from bad to worse with me. Mi have to a sleep pan di roadside. Mi and mi woman a sleep pan di roadside,” he said before breaking down in tears.

“Mi all tell her seh fi go back to her mother, but she seh she nah leave me alone ina dem condition de. Anyting happen, just happen, she seh. So we affi sleep pan di roadside fi over one week, and is like one night a voice seh to me: ‘You can’t stay on the roadside any longer, because anybody can pass and anyting can happen to we,’” he said.

Mighty said he got tired of sleeping on the road and started trespassing on properties at nights to sleep in a safe place.

“Mi pull di people dem gate and go ina dem yard and sleep pan dem veranda and a watch fi day, dats dem nuh wake and see we. As day peep out, we go out pan di road,” he said.

Mighty later sought refuge in Redwood, St Catherine, where he now resides under a structure he made from bamboo and ‘wis’ (vines). He was encouraged to apply to FFP Jamaica, whose head office is located in the same parish.

He applied. He was visited by members of the charity organisation and was invited to the launch of their 5K Run/Walk on Tuesday, April 4, when it was announced to him that funds provided by Black Ink Marketing Event Solutions Ltd would be used to construct a new house for him.

“I feel good about it because that now help me a lot. By giving me this unit my things will stop spoiling, like clothes and things like that weh rain keep wetting up. Dem get destroyed, because when rain fall a good body a water rush through same way and mi have to dig out one gutter fi lead out back the water,” the grateful man said.

FFP Jamaica intends to construct a two-bedroom unit for Mighty before the 5K Run/Walk event on May 13, which will start and end at Emancipation Park in St Andrew.

Source: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/a-mighty-home-at-last-destitute-man-to-receive-house-ahead-of-food-for-the-poor-jamaica-8217-s-5k_97830?profile=1373

Berris Mighty, one of the recipients of a house from Food For The Poor (FFP) Jamaica through their 5K Run/Walk initiative, shares the story of his deplorable living conditions with those gathered at the launch of the event on Tuesday, April 4 at the Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston. Pictured listening keenly around the table are: (from left) Andrew Mahfood, Chairman of FFP Jamaica; Bethany Young, Marketing and Communications Manager, Rainforest Seafoods; Alfred Francis of Running Events Jamaica and David Mair, Executive Director, FFP. Mighty will be the beneficiary of a new two-bedroom house from FFP thanks to funds provided by Black Ink Marketing Event Solutions Limited.