Statement by Shadow Minister of National Security, Governance and Artificial Intelligence Jarion Richardson JP MP
The Government’s decision to bring Transport, National Security, the Bermuda Police Service and the Road Safety Council together for an urgent road-safety meeting is welcome. After twelve road deaths this year, and another weekend in which serious collisions again left families and first responders dealing with the consequences, it would be difficult for anyone to argue that the present position is acceptable. Government has now said publicly that the situation requires an “immediate, whole-of-government response”, including stronger enforcement and additional measures to reduce collisions.
That is an important change in tone, but it must now produce a change in action. An urgent meeting is useful only if something different happens because the meeting took place. The public therefore deserves to know, in reasonably short order, what was agreed, who has responsibility for delivering each measure and when those measures will be implemented. Government has used the word “immediate”; the next update should explain what that means in practice.
There are some straightforward questions that now require answers. Will the Bermuda Police Service increase traffic-enforcement deployments or enforcement hours, and from what current level? Will the automated speed-enforcement programme be accelerated, and when should the public expect the first cameras to become operational? What road-engineering, signage or hotspot interventions are being taken forward alongside enforcement? Will Government begin publishing regular collision, enforcement, impairment, serious-injury and fatality data so that the public can distinguish activity from actual improvement? Most importantly, what did Monday’s urgent meeting produce that was not already being done before it was called?
Those questions matter because Government has now accepted a central point the OBA has been making for some time: road safety cannot be reduced to personal responsibility alone. Every driver and rider has a duty to slow down, remain sober, obey the law and exercise good judgment. But Government has duties as well. It must provide effective legislation, sufficient enforcement, safer infrastructure, functioning public transport, modern administrative systems and consequences capable of deterring dangerous conduct. Road safety is a shared responsibility, but “shared” cannot mean that Government’s share is limited to asking the public to behave better.
This is also why I continue to press for the Road Traffic and Motor Car (Road Safety and Penalties) Amendment Bill. The Bill is not, and has never been presented as, a complete road-safety strategy. It is one legislative component of a much wider response. Government may disagree with particular penalties or mechanisms, and it is entitled to do so. Parliament has a Committee stage precisely so that Members can test provisions, amend them and improve the final law.
What concerns me is the suggestion that we must wait for every element of a wider strategy to be ready before taking forward measures that can be acted upon now. Bermuda does not have to choose between legislation and enforcement, or between cameras, education, better roads and stronger consequences. These are not competing options. They are parts of the same response, and Government is capable of advancing more than one of them at the same time.
The perfect cannot become the enemy of the good while people continue to be seriously injured and killed. Complexity is a reason to organise the work properly; it is not a reason to postpone the work. After years of warnings, repeated announcements and worsening outcomes, delay can no longer be presented as caution or prudence.
The Government now has an opportunity to demonstrate that its urgent meeting marks a genuine change in approach. I welcome practical measures that save lives, whether they originate with Government, the Opposition, the police or the Road Safety Council. But the public should be able to see what was decided, who owns each commitment, when it will happen and whether it is working.
With twelve road deaths already recorded this year, the question is no longer whether Bermuda has a road-safety problem. Government itself has now acknowledged the urgency. The question is what will be done differently because of that acknowledgement, and how soon the public will see the result.
