Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Miller has signed the Make Roads Safe global petition during a ceremony at the official launch of the first UN Global Road Safety Week.
The Prime Minister was joined by Rev. Dr. Alfred Reid, Lord Bishop of Jamaica, Robert Pickersgill, Minister of Housing and Transportation, and Paula Fletcher, Executive Director of the National Road Safety Council during an event organized by the Jamaican Automobile Association.
Dr Dayanand Sawd, Orthopedic Surgeon at the Bustamante Hospital for Children presented the results of a study conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2005, which indicate that every year approximately 13,000 people are injured as a result of road traffic accidents, which averages 35 per day. The number of fatalities are rising in Jamaica, with 357 people (including 81 children under 14) killed in 2006.