A campaigner has issued a stark safety plea in a bid to cut the death toll on Bermuda's roads ? on the weekend a spate of crashes left several people seriously injured in hospital.

Four young people were badly hurt when their car lost control overtaking and ploughed into the porch of a Paget house. The driver, 23, was in a serious condition in intensive care, staff at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital confirmed last night, with the other three stable.

In another accident, a suspected drunk's car hit a roundabout on Trimingham Road before smashing through a park wall.

And ? in yet another bleak weekend for road safety in Bermuda ? a crash victim was still in hospital with serious injuries last night after his motorbike "catapulted" over a car following a crash in Devonshire on Friday.

Speaking at an awards event on Saturday night , Dr. Joseph Froncioni said the Island had a "major problem" on the roads. Repeating his calls for compulsory ? and extensive ? bike training courses for first-time drivers, the former chairman of the Road Safety Council said about 600 16-year-olds every year started riding equipped only with bad habits picked up from friends, "bravado" and a "sense of the immortality of youth".

Dr. Froncioni made his wake-up call as he picked up the first quarterly CableVision community service award of 2006.

He told an audience of dignitaries at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel he was "honoured" to receive the accolade ? because he often thought nobody was paying attention to his prevention message.

He resigned as chairman in December after five years heading a council that advises the Ministry of Transport on safety. Stepping down so someone with fresh ideas could take over, he is now investigating road crashes on the Island in 2003/4, which led to nearly 4,000 patients needing urgent hospital treatment.

When he resigned he told a vast amount of work was still needed to curb the number of highway deaths and injuries on the Island.

And he echoed that view on Saturday night.

"We have a major problem on our roads," Dr. Froncioni, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who spends much of his time dealing with crash consequences, told the awards ceremony.

And he also warned of the "enormous" economic burden resulting from a death or serious injury on the Island's road network.

Of the 150 road-related head injuries that need hospital treatment as many as 50 go into intensive care, he explained. The average cost of this treatment is about $5,000 per day ? with the average stay roughly five days, for an injury the safety expert said was "probably entirely preventable".

He said road accidents needed to be dealt with in a similar way to how a doctor treated illnesses, by looking at the history and trying to create a "vaccine".

"The vaccine for our problem is education and training," added Dr. Froncioni, 52. "We teach 16 year olds about the dangers of sexual diseases, alcohol and cigarettes, but do not tell them about road safety."

He added that children needed to be taught "right from the beginning" and that message needed to be constantly hammered home, so high school school pupils were better prepared when they started riding bikes.

He said a compulsory bike course, as seen in most other countries in the world, was needed in Bermuda. "It's costly," he added. "But it will be worth it.

"That's the only way we will find a long-term solution to our problem."

There were a total of 16 traffic accidents between 5 p.m. on Friday and the same time yesterday. Nine were damage only and seven resulted in injuries.

The single vehicle Paget accident happened at about 3.40 a.m. yesterday, at the junction of Middle Road and Bostock Hill East.

Police said it appeared that a black Peugeot travelling east lost control as it tried to overtake a vehicle heading in the same direction and hit a porch.

The driver, a 23-year-old Southampton man, suffered face and chest injuries. The front passenger, a 19-year-old Pembroke woman, had a head injury and bruising, while a back seat occupant, a 19-year-old from the same parish, received a broken pelvis. A 20-year-old Pembroke man, the second back seat passenger, had a broken neck.

The suspected drink driver was arrested after driving a grey Rover into a wall near Trimingham Road, Paget. Police believe the car lost control and ended up in Crow Lane Park after hitting the northern roundabout at about 5.45 a.m. on Saturday. The front of the car was badly damaged, and a 27-year-old Paget man was arrested.

The rider injured in Friday's Frog Lane crash, involving a motorcycle and two cars, was still in the intensive care unit at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital last night. Police said the 35-year-old Hamilton Parish man's condition was "critical but stable". He received head injuries after colliding with a Peugeot car, before being thrown into the air and landing in the road under another vehicle. His condition was critical on Friday night, although hospital officials last night said he was stable.

The car drivers were not injured, but passengers in one vehicle reported minor injuries.

Speaking at the scene of that accident, Police Service spokesman Dwayne Caines said: "This is a sobering start to 2006.

"Last year saw 13 people die needlessly. This accident underscores the need for road safety."