There needs to be a cultural shift against drink driving and speeding in tandem with a crackdown by the authorities to stop Bermuda's epidemic of road deaths.

That was the message from road safety campaigner Dr. Joseph Froncioni after 2008 proved to be the worst year in a decade for such fatalities, with 17 in total.

The Police and the Road Safety Council said last week that new plans including recommendations for speed cameras and random sobriety checks will be announced within weeks.

Outlining his views on the crisis and what he hopes will be done, Dr. Froncioni said: "There are many factors contributing to our situation.

"One is that people still feel that it's acceptable to drink and drive. Maybe its because we're a tourist destination, maybe there's a party mood or vacation mood, but its common practise every day. We need to fix that."

Dr. Froncioni, an orthopaedic surgeon and former Road Safety Council chairman, founded the charity Bermuda Smartrisk. The charity compiled a report from more than 3,500 accidents in 2003/04.

"We need to start gathering the data. The study I did looking at 2003/04 does not speak to drinking or drug affected driving. We did not have the statistics," he said.

That was because few people have their blood tested for drink and drugs after crashes.

"The legislation is there, but it's a forensic act and they just don't have the solutions to do that right now.

"The only people that can do that are the Police doctors (but) that could be done by nurses employed here (at the hospital) on their time off."

Dr. Froncioni explained that although people can be breath-tested more easily than blood-tested, the latter is the best method to get incontestable evidence.

"The law says Police are allowed to demand that from you and to refuse is an offence. The big problem is the physician taking care of the patient cannot be an agent of the Police gathering forensic evidence.

"That could be fixed by having a technician or nurse not on duty who could come on board and take the blood.

"That would at least start giving us statistics as to how many are alcohol or drug affected when involved in collisions," he recommended.

"The second thing you can do is sobriety checks (on the roads.) The function of random checks is not to catch people drinking and driving. It's to deter it. You can publicise it so people find alternatives to drinking and driving."

Another thing Dr. Froncioni favours is a tough stance against those who break Bermuda's 35 kph speed limit.

According to him, the average speed on Bermuda's roads has gone from 45 kph in the mid 1990s to 55 kph now.

World studies show that when speeds increase, there is a disproportionately high rise in accidents too.

At the same time, Dr. Froncioni said, "the Police have disappeared from our roads since the late 1980s" and there are sometimes just three traffic officers on duty at one time.

He believes that an increased Police presence, coupled with the implementation of speed cameras, would make a real difference.

"What is stopping speed cameras I'm not sure. They work, and they work well. The star country in the European Union in the UK, which has the lowest fatality rate in the EU.

"One of the ways they've done it is getting a handle on drink driving. Speed cameras are in use all through the EU but in the UK especially, and they've really come down hard on drink driving," he noted.

A total of 117 people have died in Bermuda as a result of road collisions since the start of 1997, the majority involving motorcycles.

Statistics show it to be among the worst of the world's developing countries for fatal accidents per head of population.

Prior to the 17th fatal accident, which claimed the life of sports star Machai Campbell last Tuesday, Bermuda had already suffered fatalities for 2008 equating to 23 per 100,000 people.

By comparison, Malta had 3.2 deaths per 100,000 people the best of around 50 countries considered in a 2004 study the UK had 5.3, Canada had 8.5 and the US had 14.5.