Road Safety

Road safety and traffic fatalities have been a consistent concern across all communities on the islands for some time.  It is one public safety issue that affects everyone equally, because people from all walks of life travel the islands' roads on a daily basis.  Raising awareness about road safety has been a consistent priority for the RCIPS, and officers make regular media appearances and engage in community partnerships like those mentioned here to make the roads safer.

In 2015 the number of traffic fatalities increased to thirteen, which was an alarming figure for a population of only 60,000 people.  At that time the RCIPS NPD and Traffic Departments partnered with Cayman 27 to produce Road Impact: Cayman Islands, which portrayed the impact of road deaths and featured entirely local content.  The documentary aired on local media channels and screened at the Cayman Islands Film Festival. The RCIPS also screened the film at local high schools specifically for students about to receive their drivers' licenses.

The Share the Road Campaign launched in 2017 as a road safety project to improve safety on Cayman’s roads through education of all types of road users, including motorists, motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians, on how to treat the road as communal space. The campaign is an initiative of the Rotary Clubs of Cayman, with whom the RCIPS has gladly partnered to raise awareness about public safety in the one space shared by everyone, the road. The RCIPS Traffic and Roads Policing Unit makes regular media appearances with Rotary representatives on different aspects of road safety, and distributes educational materials generated by the campaign during interactions with motorists. The campaign is scheduled to continue through 2018. See http://www.sharetheroad.ky/for more information.

Streetskills is a network of government agencies and non-profit organizations dedicated to improving road safety on Cayman through three main areas of activity – Education, Enforcement and Engineering. The network brings the main bodies responsible for these aspects of road safety together and enables greater coordination and information-sharing, as well as amplified messages to the public about trends and dangers on the road. The RCIPS Traffic and Roads Policing Unit executes activities mainly under the “Enforcement” heading, although it actively participates in educational projects and collaborates with the National Roads Authority to pinpoint where structural road deficiencies lead to accidents. Streetskills has not been active in the recent past but a re-launch of the effort is planned for 2018.