It would be encouraging to believe that the picture this newspaper ran last week of the scene where Eugene Christopher died had made a difference to people?s driving habits and convinced them to slow down.

There does seem to be some anecdotal evidence that this, along with the portraits of seven of the eight people who have died on the roads this year has done something to make people think, at least for a while.

More importantly, what the media coverage of the appalling toll so far this year has done, is to develop something of a consensus on what should be done to improve driving conditions.

The major point of agreement clearly has been on traffic enforcement.

Photographs on the front page of the newspaper and awareness campaigns by the Road Safety Council and others will only have some temporary value, the argument goes. If they are not followed by enforcement, both by the Police and the courts, then the deterrent effect is lost as memories fade and everyone?s sense of ?it can?t happen to me? increases.

As Bermuda Sun columnist Tom Vesey pointed out last week, stricter enforcement carries a political cost, and ultimately it is a ?small p? political decision, both for the Police and for the Island?s lawmakers.

But it is a decision that must be made. The statistics show that Bermuda has the highest per capita rate of road deaths in the developed world. This is a national shame, and any Policeman or politician should remember that fact when the complaints inevitably arise about radar guns, Police licence checks and an increased traffic presence.

It is also worth remembering that having more Police on traffic duty can have a deterrent effect on other kinds of crime. House-breakers, drug dealers and the like will be deterred from plying their trade is they know the Police are around. So will vandals, litterers and the like.

Transport Minister Ewart Brown has said that he is not convinced that more draconian traffic laws will have an effect. He is right ? if the laws are not enforced.

So the first answer is to enforce the law. If that doesn?t work, then the penalties need to be increased.

At the other end of the scale, more needs to be done to improve driving habits, especially for motorbike riders.

One major problem on Bermuda?s roads is that bike riders tend to take their bad habits ? overtaking on corners, tailgating, not signalling ? with them when they graduate to cars, often with disastrous results.

For that reason, motorcycle riders should be forced to take instruction before they are tested, and the tests should be more stringent, as veteran motorcycle enthusiast Tom Trimingham has suggested.

The rules should be even stricter for anyone driving trucks, taxis or public service vehicles. Where drivers either have strangers in their care or are driving vehicles that are too large for Bermuda?s roads, they need to be held to a higher standard. Too often, they have the worst habits of all.

Finally, Phillip Wells in his column in yesterday?s , made a valid point about signs and traffic lights. When the traffic lights were out around Hamilton after Hurricane Fabian, driving behaviour seemed to improve and traffic flow was no worse, and may even have improved. To be sure, this may have been temporary, but there seems to be a case to be made that many traffic lights actually make driving and traffic worse. Disabling some of the lights at junctions where there are clear sightlines would be a worthwhile experiment.

And let?s face it, at this point just about anything is worth trying.