Police have made two arrests on suspicion of driving under the influence and issued 12 tickets for speeding, in the first weekend of the resumed ‘Operation Quaker’ road-safety campaign.
The initiative resumed on Friday, 22 Oct. following a fatal collision, in which 37-year-old Filipino Carlos Luyang Patricio was killed on South Church Street on 16 Oct.
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service said in a press release that the focus of the campaign, which originally launched in May, was on “night time speeding and DUI”.
In July, police announced they were discontinuing Operation Quaker, replacing it with a more targeted approach.
However, police relaunched the campaign a week after the fatal collision on South Church Street, stating the renewed focus of the operation would involve increased police presence and traffic enforcement at known hot spots, including speeding enforcement at various locations, along with vehicle checkpoints and high-visibility patrols, the RCIPS said.
Chief Inspector Malcolm Kay of Specialist Operations added in a press release issued Wednesday that police road presence would be bolstered with the support of RCIPS special constables to provide “increased enforcement and visibility”.
He implored the public to exercise “good driving habits, especially when it comes to drunk driving and speeding, which are the leading contributors to fatal collisions in the Cayman Islands”.
In addition to the arrests for DUI and tickets issued for speeding, 24 further tickets were handed out over the first weekend of the resumed operation.
The release states officers also responded to 16 calls for service for motor vehicle collisions during the same time period.
Inspector Dwayne Jones, who is in charge of the Traffic and Roads Policing Unit, stressed the potential for “dire consequences” for drivers involved in accidents.
“Driving at night time already has its challenges with reduced visibility of surroundings, so when motorists choose to speed and consume drugs and/or alcohol before operating their vehicle, the roadways can quickly become a dangerous environment for all road users,” he said in the release.
He asked motorists “to understand that speeding and driving under the influence is just not worth the risk when you consider the financial implications if you get caught, but more importantly, the often dire consequences of being involved in an accident”.
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The problem is that there were probably 1,200 cars that were speeding.