A well meaning change in road traffic policy aimed at keeping young people out of prison is killing and maiming them instead, says Dr. Joseph Froncioni

I was interested to read in a recent edition of the Times Online that the British Government will cut the national speed limit from 60 mph to 50 mph effective next year.

Considering that the UK already has one of the lowest road fatality rates among OECD member countries, you might wonder what has prompted it to take this action. According to the International Road Traffic and Accident Data Base, the body that monitors road traffic issues in OECD countries, Great Britain's road fatality rate is 5.4 per 100,000 population.

The USA's road fatality rate is 14.7 per 100,000 so you would think the UK had something to boast about. But it's not boasting and the reason is that there are still 3,000 people who lose their lives on UK roads every year. Reducing the speed limit to 50 mph, according to the Department of Transport, is likely to save 200-250 lives per year and reduce carbon emissions to boot.

So, what does any of this have to do with Bermuda? You should be shocked when I tell you that Bermuda's road fatality rate for 2008 was 25.5 per 100,000; that's nearly five times the UK rate! Now I'll grant you that we travel on motorbikes a lot more here than in the UK and this fact alone is certainly partly responsible for the high figure. However, Bermuda's legal speed limit of 35 kph should theoretically partly offset the inherent dangers of riding a motorbike.

Sadly, the situation on our roads is worsening at an alarming rate (see below) that few seem concerned about. And, as with an iceberg, citizens and leaders alike tend to focus only on the fatalities, the very tip of this enormous problem. To see the real magnitude of our problem, one must look under the surface where the survivors are.

The stark reality is that for every road fatality in Bermuda, several hundred people sustain road injuries severe enough to require emergency care. And, of this group of survivors, a significant number are left permanently disabled and/or disfigured. To make matters worse, the individuals most likely to sustain injuries on the road are 16- to 20-year-olds.

When gauging the socio-economic burden an injured individual places on his community, the World Health Organisation speaks of "Disability Affected Life Years" (DALY). In view of the young age of our road-injured patients, the burden in Bermuda, although difficult to measure, is likely to be far greater than anyone imagines. But, it's the fatalities that make the headlines, so let me focus on those for the remainder of this article.

Figure 1 shows Bermuda's yearly road fatalities from 1962 to the present. Notice that we had some very good years and some very bad years but it's difficult to see a definite trend. In fact, it's not until we mark some of the turning-points on this timeline that we start to get a true picture of what's happened on our roads in the last 45 years or so.

In 1976, Dr. Clarence James, then Minister of Transport, made helmets mandatory for all motorbike riders. Figure 2 illustrates clearly what prompted Government to introduce this measure. One look at the trend line (derived using linear regression analysis) shows that things were going from bad to worse; people were losing their lives at an alarming rate, the majority succumbing from massive head injuries.

Things improved dramatically immediately after the introduction of helmets and yearly fatality rates even decreased slightly over the next 20 years or so. The trend line in Figure 3 illustrates this well. However, there was also a dark side to this chapter in our road traffic history. Policing was hard-nosed, sentencing was harsh and our prison was overpopulated with young (primarily black) men who had ended up there not because they were criminals but rather because they had misbehaved on our roads.

I moved to Bermuda in 1988 so that my knowledge of the state of things prior to that is mostly second hand. I have, however, read The Tumin Report (Report on the Criminal Justice System in Bermuda, October 2, 1992), and I would recommend it as essential reading for anyone interested in the subject at hand; a copy can be found in the Public Library.

Judge Tumin's report is too elaborate to go into here but suffice it to say that one of the major recommendations was to ease-up on road policing. Tumin noted that especially in matters of enforcement, police-community relations were less that ideal and that in particular, police were alienating Bermuda's youth.

This brings us to the next watershed in our road traffic history. In 1995, Colin Coxall became Commissioner of Police and it is under his watch that significant operational changes were made in the BPS. Coxall implemented some of Tumin's recommendations and one of these was a drastic reduction in road policing. So it is that in 1996, Bermuda's roads went from being among the most heavily policed in the developed world to being the least policed. I think the word I have used in the past is "anarchy". In my view, the result of these changes is well illustrated in Figure 4.

Sadly, Figure 4 shows a steadily increasing number of yearly road deaths over the 12 year period from 1996 to 2008. Looking at the trend line, Bermuda has experienced an increase of nearly 85 percent in road deaths during this period. The percentage increase is nearly the same for non-fatal injuries. While nearly all OECD countries have managed a steady decrease in road deaths during this period, we have bucked the trend and shown a steady increase.We used to incarcerate our young men for misbehavior on the road; now we kill or maim them. If the present trend continues, and nothing leads me to think it will not, it will soon match Figure 2 and we will be able to boast that we have done the near impossible and turned back the clock to pre-1976 days.

While no one factor is solely responsible for the terrible situation we find ourselves in, some may be more important than others. In the world of road safety, we speak of "Speed-Creep". In a nutshell, "When the cat's away, the mice will play." Take the police off the roads and the speed will gradually increase. By my estimate, the average speed in Bermuda has gone from 45 kph in the early 90s to 55 kph today. That's a 22 percent increase.

While this may not be news to you, you were probably unaware of this road safety fact: increases in average speed result in exponential increases in severity and number of road injuries. Stated another way, small increases in average speed usually result in very large increases in injury and death on the road. This happens everywhere but the effect is amplified on undivided roads (that would be us). Here are two real-life examples:

• During his presidency, Bill Clinton abolished the requirement that states comply with federally mandated speed limits to receive Federal Highway Subsidies. As a result, in 1995, a number of states increased their highway speed limits by an average of four percent. The result? A 17 percent increase in road deaths.

• In 1993, Israel increased the speed limit on its major highway by 11 percent for a one-year trial. The result? A 25 percent increase in road deaths.

While Bermuda may well be "another world", we are no different than anywhere else when it comes to the laws of physics: Speed kills (and maims) and it does so ever more efficiently on undivided roads. We must address our road safety issues in a more definitive way than we have done thus far. We must come to the realisation that incarceration and carnage are not the only two alternatives available to us.

What is required is a two-pronged approach. In the short term, we need to put the police back on our roads in order to reverse "speed-creep" and enforce the existing traffic laws. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating a return to the heavy-handed policing of old. There is such a thing as sensitive policing. "An oxymoron", you say? Not at all. Police constables can be taught to be more responsive to the socio-cultural needs of our community. Similarly, we must make incarceration the very last option for our system of justice.

More important than enforcement and sentencing are those solutions we can put into place that will have a long-term and long-lasting effect on our road users. We need to ensure that future generations of riders and drivers have the skills and mindset necessary for safe road use. There is only one way to achieve this: education. Sounds like a no-brainer because it is; we need to teach our kids how to ride motorbikes.

Our research has demonstrated clearly that 16-20 year olds simply do not have the skill, experience or judgment to ride safely. Project Ride is not enough. What is needed is a full, comprehensive motorcycle instruction course that meets accepted international standards and is an integral part of the high-school curriculum. Furthermore, these motorcycle courses must be taught by dedicated professional instructors.

We have thus far found it important to teach our children about the dangers of sexually transmitted disease, drugs, alcohol and tobacco but we have failed to address the gravest threat to their adolescent health, the motorbike. Such a project will cost money and lots of it. However, there is every indication that every dollar spent will be recovered manyfold in health care savings.

The long-term solution must also incorporate an effective graduated licence programme with the emphasis on effective. We do not need to reinvent the wheel here; we know from other jurisdictions that these programmes work if the proper infrastructure is in place to administer the incentives and deterrents, so essential to such a programme.

There is no room for half measures. Structured properly, a graduated licensing programme coupled with professional motorcycle instruction will undoubtedly lead to a very significant reduction in deaths and injuries.

We are just 12 weeks into the new year and already, four young lives have been lost on our roads. Will it take another year like 1975 (26 fatalities) for us to act and make the hard changes that are so needed? Our community cannot afford sit back and watch as the statistics mount. The medicine, I think you know, will be bitter and expensive but without it a tragic outcome is a near certainty.

Dr. Froncioni is the founder of BermudaSMARTRISK and is a former chairman of the Road Safety Council