Easy access to bikes helping to trigger motorcycle deaths, say western stakeholders

Western Bureau:

Some stakeholders in Westmoreland and Hanover are expressing concern about the ease with which young men in both parishes are able to access motorcycles even as the death rate from motorbike accidents continues to escalate there.

For the past three years, Westmoreland and Hanover have accounted for the highest number of fatalities resulting from motorcycle crashes on the island. Last year, the island recorded 111 deaths resulting from motorcycle accidents, half of which were young men from the two western parishes.

Vice-president of the Hanover Parish Development Committee Leonard Sharpe told Western Focus that motorcycles were being sold like regular household items by numerous commercial entities, including operators of haberdasheries and wholesales in the two parishes.

"You have car wash, haber-dashery - anybody who wants to sell bikes - just buy bike in the two parishes. Some set up a container and buy some bike put inna dem and jus' a sell bike because money a run. And they are not authorised dealers," Sharpe declared. "You have people who just set up a place like a shed and sell bike. Even a car-wash place in one of the towns in Hanover is selling bikes, so anybody can go there and buy a bike.

"And they are selling the bikes without helmets and di guy dem (motorcycle purchasers) no business. Each time you buy a bike, you are supposed to get a helmet with it, and if you don't have a trade licence that says you can sell bikes, you are not supposed to be selling bikes," Sharpe stated.

Just last Wednesday, Westmore-land recorded its first motorcycle fatalities after 20-year-old AndrÈ Powell of Whitehall in Negril and 25-year-old Antonio Jackson of West End died after they collided along the Norman Manley Boulevard in the resort town.

UNLICENSED VEHICLES

Elaine Bradley, a director of the Negril Chamber of Commerce, expressed discomfort with the fact that even though many of the motorcycles are unlicensed, the operators are able to roam the streets of the town without being intercepted by the police.

"Now you talk to the police and they say even if they confiscate the bikes, the next day, they go out and buy another bike, so they can't do anything. These people who sell the bikes are supposed to be responsible adults and they must not sell these people the bikes unless it's insured and they have proper gear (because) you are selling it to send them out on the road illegally," Bradley said.

"Just as Mr Obama now is trying with the gun law to make sure people selling guns are selling them to responsible people and getting background checks, and everything I think maybe that's one of the ways we have to move. I am not saying background checks (for bikers), but the people selling the bikes, they should be made accountable. When you have a business, you register what you are selling. So if you are

registered to sell something, you have to put down the things you are intending to sell, so how they get through all those loopholes?" she added.

For chairman of the Lucea Development Initiative Nerris Hawthorne, the spate of motorcycle accidents could be stemmed with proper training.

"Just as how you have to pass a test in order to get a driving licence, that should be the same requirement - that you do a test to get a motorcycle driver's licence. I still think a learning school is necessary; or your community police get groups together in areas that have a lot of bikes; or someone could set up a little business to train persons," Hawthorne said.