The Police Force of St. Maarten is launching a Road Safety Campaign, aimed at creating awareness and changing driving behavior in an effort to minimize the number of road fatalities and traffic accidents. The campaign is supported by NAGICO Insurances.
This project is themed ‘Safety Starts with you’ and will run for a period of 12 months during which it will be specially targeted at road users in the community and tourists who use our roads. The awareness campaign will be centered on encouraging and enforcing road safety measures like: the wearing of seatbelts, reducing speed, the wearing of helmets for riders and pillion riders, desisting the use of cellular phones while driving, obeying the road codes and to stop driving while under the influence of alcohol.
"We have great concern for the number of accidents we have had in the previous year up until now, which have resulted, some in fatalities and others in serious injuries, therefore we have been working on a plan of approach to address this matter," Police spokesman Ricardo Henson explained. "We were more than happy when NAGICO approached us with a similar project, therefore after weeks of discussions we have decided to pool our efforts and create one awareness campaign which we believe will bring about a change in the attitude and behavior of our road users and ultimately minimize the number of accidents we are faced with each day."
NAGICO came up with the initiative as part of their community involvement program and has pledged to combine their efforts with the police to reach the same goal.
"Safety starts with you" will feature road signs strategically placed across the Dutch side of the island, the campaign will also incorporate the disseminating of information via popular radio stations and television talk shows in which the Police and Traffic Department will be disseminating information to the Public regarding the importance of knowing and using the road codes, accident hot spots, explaining traffic laws among other relevant topics.