between emergency room doctors and the Island's law enforcement agencies over testing suspected impaired drivers in hospital after accidents should be welcomed.

The move suggests that Bermuda is finally focusing on the severe decline in driving habits and the accompanying rise in road deaths.

It is tragic and an indictment that 17 people have had to die to get to the point of focusing on the problem, but it does appear that something is finally being done. Transport officials who say that education is key are correct in the long run; along with that there is the need for greater enforcement of the laws.

It is true that there was a period when Bermuda seemed to be turning traffic offenders into criminals as people were being jailed for driving while disqualified. More warnings and more chances were then given to traffic offenders. That may have kept some people out of prison, but it has done nothing to make the roads safer. And 17 road deaths so far this year should make it clear that in the wrong hands, a motor vehicle is a killing machine.

What is needed now is greater enforcement of the law, more intensive collection of fines and compulsory driver education for repeat offenders.

In the long run, more education and a traffic plan which caters to the needs of modern Bermuda are needed. Plans by the previous Government and the new Government to improve affordable public transport are a good start.

What is also needed is a public commitment to greater care being taken on the roads. Bermuda is so small that the benefits of speeding from one place to another are minimal; what point is there in putting your life at risk in order to get somewhere five or ten minutes earlier at best? But almost everyone is guilty of some sort of bad driving habit. We all need to take more care, volunteer to be a designated driver and so on.

To that end, Dr. Brown's move to mediate the dispute over the hospital testing of suspected impaired drivers is a good move. Doctors have good reason to be concerned about violating patients' privacy and discouraging injured patients from going for care. At the same time, these patients could be the same person who put another patient into emergency or the morgue and should be dealt with.

Properly administered tests where a physician has cause to suspect a patient was impaired will do much to reduce the terrible toll that our drivers are taking on the roads.