Tiger Bay writes: "Yesterday's announcement that government will begin to use RFIDs on vehicle licenses is a good idea. It is appalling that up to 8 percent of vehicles on Bermuda's roads are unregistered and unlicensed. This is indicative of...
I’m baffled by the announcement that the police are to start ticketing anyone driving over the official speed limit of 35 kph. In the three and a half years that I’ve been in Bermuda, the police have never done this....
Earlier this week, the police announced that they will now stop drivers and motorcyclists who use cell phones while on the road. They've apparently decided that they don’t need to wait for new legislation to crack down on the practice,...
Whenever I’m out driving, I spend a lot of time swearing at other road users. A lot of the time, my expletive-laden outbursts are prompted by the failure of other drivers to use their indicators. I used to think this...
I’m a big believer in the necessity of speed cameras to help improve behaviour on Bermuda’s roads. So I was pleased to hear that Transport Minister Ewart Brown has asked Public Safety Minister Randy Horton to expedite their installation. Alas,...
The Government’s decision to exempt holders of foreign driving licences from parts of Bermuda’s driving test is a step in the right direction. However, I would have scrapped the need for such drivers to take any of it. A Bermudian...
Today is No Alcohol Day - the day that Bermuda's Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention is urging us to abstain from alcoholic beverages, think about our alcohol consumption, and refrain from drinking and driving. If the results of...
This week's award is shared between the drivers of the green Peugeot convertible and the silver car tailgating him, who passed me on Kindley Field Road, heading towards St. David's, at around 6.50pm this evening. These two morons must have...
On Friday afternoon there was a serious four-vehicle pile-up on North Shore Road. According to the Royal Gazette: The accident happened when the driver of a blue open-backed truck, travelling west, stopped to let a postman turn out of Idlewood...
With only four traffic cops in Bermuda, speed cameras are essential to get drivers to slow down. Unfortunately, the Government no longer seems to have any intention of introducing them. In March last year, Minister of Public Safety Randy Horton...
Tiger Bay writes: "The Police's failure to control Bermuda's roads has many knock on effects beyond the stress caused to commuters by ill-disciplined drivers and excess speed. The economic impact is frequently overlooked, as the lack of policing leads to...
Dr. Joseph Froncioni may have recently stepped down as chairman of the Road Safety Council, but that only seems to have made him more vocal. Last week he was on VSB news talking about the need for better motorcycle instruction....
Dr. Christopher Johnson was introduced as the new chairman of the Road Safety Council yesterday. Will he be able to make Bermuda's roads safer? Some of the things that he said were encouraging. He wants us to start looking at...
The picture on the front page of today's Bermuda Sun was undeniably shocking. It showed 17 year-old Dejon Simmons, after the accident that left him with third degree burns to 90% of his body. Mr. Simmons' accident occured while he...
Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown deserves praise for bringing legislation before the House of Assembly on Friday to introduce a demerit system for driving licences. The standard of driving in Bermuda is abysmal and a demerit system ought to help...
The poll that's been running on the site for the last couple of weeks was unscientifc even by the standards of web polls. In addition to the usual problems of multiple voting, this week's question required a pretty subjective response...
Royal Gazette Opinion, Thursday 8 September 2005 When it comes to stupid ideas, I used to think that drinking alcohol and then getting into a car was one of the stupidest. To my mind, it was up there with riding...
Is it any wonder that people continue to drive while disqualified when the punishment for doing so is merely a $250 fine?
A reader says: "Saw something completely crazy yesterday on my way home from work and had to take a picture of it. This guy on a bike was having a conversation with his buddy (driving the white car) all the...
How can someone caught driving drunk at 170 kph avoid going to prison? I don't care if it was his first offence. Murderers and rapists usually go to prison for their first offence. Why should this idiot be any different?...
PLP backbencher Wayne Perinchief thinks the speed limit should be increased. Or more accurately, he thinks the official limit should be increased to the speed at which people can already drive without being stopped by the police. He's absolutely right....
A government-funded trial in the UK has just concluded that more than 1,000 lives a year could be saved by fitting speed limiters to all cars there. The satellite-based system will monitor the speed limit and apply the brakes or...
Stuart Hayward recently complained that part of the reason speeding is so prevalent on Bermuda's roads is that no-one really knows what the speed limit is. He speculated that, as evidenced by court convictions, the de facto limit is currently...
Shadow Transport Minister Jamahl Simmons is officially rolling out the UBP's PEACE road safety plan at a town hall meeting this evening. The plan was first announced earlier this month and is about Promoting Education, Accountability, Consequences and Enforcement. It's...
Royal Gazette Opinion, Thursday 26 May 2005 Last week another young man lost his life on Bermuda’s roads. Cue the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth. Cue the politicians, pleading with us to slow down. Cue the columnists, bemoaning the...
The following letter was sent to the editor of the Royal Gazette and copied to A Limey In Bermuda. Dear Sir I would like to express my utter disgust at what I experienced last night as I stopped at a...
Royal Gazette Opinion, 9 March 2005 The introduction of speed cameras on Bermuda’s roads came a step closer last week when Minister of Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety, Randy Horton, announced that $100,000 has been put aside for them...
According to the online edition of today's Bermuda Sun, Cecil Brangman thinks the "Police still aren't doing enough to [prevent] wreckless driving". Sam Moniz, however, believes parents and police can "prevent wreckless driving through education". I think we need more...
Readers of A Limey In Bermuda are divided over the suggestion that Bermuda should use speed cameras to catch drivers travelling faster than 40 kph. The idea was put forward by the Chairman of the Road Safety Council, Dr. Joseph...
In a recent post and letter to the Editor, I criticised Chairman of the Road Safety Council, Dr. Joseph Froncioni, for advocating politically incompatible positions on the speed limit and speed camera use The following is Dr. Froncioni's response. Every...
A new employee of a local automotive firm had a lot of explaining to do after writing off a customer’s mini-van in a high-speed crash while on a test drive. The Daihatsu Extol van hit a wall on North Shore...
I have a lot of respect for Road Safety Council chairman Joseph Froncioni. But his opposition to raising Bermuda’s speed limit to 50 kph is in direct conflict with his desire for greater use of speed cameras. His argument against...
Anyone hoping that the Government's Throne Speech pledge to introduce a driving licence penalty points system would be just the first step in an effort to raise the Island's standard of driving will have been disappointed by Transport Minister Dr....
In last week's poll I asked you to vote for up to three measures that you felt would do most to improve safety on Bermuda's roads. Of the ten ideas suggested, five attracted significantly more votes than the rest. The...
Following a rash of recent accidents on Bermuda’s roads, which have resulted in death, injury and traffic chaos, Shadow Transport Minister Jamahl Simmons is calling for more traffic police to deter speeding motorists. I’ve lost count of the number of...
A letter to the editor bemoans how fast people now drive. A columnist criticises the police for raising the de facto speed limit by only stopping drivers more than 15 kph above the official maximum. It’s true: the speed at...
I'm beginning to understand why Bermudians drive so close to each other. The revelation struck as I found myself stuck behind a car doing a steady 40kph on my way in to work this morning. Minutes earlier I'd finally managed...
It's well-known that certain languages have few or no terms of expression for concepts rarely or never experienced naturally by their speakers. Just as some tribes in the Amazon rainforest have no word for 'ocean' or 'sea', so Bermudian drivers...
The new seatbelt law came into force today. So far it looks like Bermudians are largely taking heed. In a completely unscientific poll, conducted as we drove from Ferry Reach to Store Hill earlier today, Mandy and I counted 85...
The UBP normally does a pretty decent job of being the Opposition, despite being in power for decades until the PLP finally kicked them out in 1998. The UK Conservative Party could certainly learn a thing or two from them....
Among the many things that make me nervous when driving on the roads here, joggers and cyclists are the worst. Every morning on my drive into Hamilton, at some point I invariably find myself in a slow-moving column of traffic...
I've ranted on about the parlous state of driving in Bermuda before, but today I came across this little nugget which confirmed my worst fears: In its total land area of 21 square miles, Bermuda has six times more vehicle...
One of the things I've been asked on a number of occasions since moving to Bermuda is if there's anything I miss about the UK. Well, it's certainly not the weather, notwithstanding the heatwave that hit London shortly after we...
It was with some satisfaction that I read in the Royal Gazette the other day that I'm not the only one who thinks the standard of driving in Bermuda is terrible. The head of the Bermuda Police Traffic Unit, one...
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