Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Water Resources (MTWW), Mark Cummins, has confirmed that MTWW is committed to educating children, and the wider community about road safety. To this end, he revealed that the Ministry would be reactivating its schools’ road safety programme.
Mr. Cummins gave this assurance during a recent book presentation at the Ministry’s headquarters in The Pine, St. Michael, where Leon Blades, a retired police officer with over 40 years’ experience in traffic management with the then Royal Barbados Police Force, donated two books to the Ministry.
Mr. Blades wrote “Keeping You Safe – Children’s Highway Code”, and co-authored “Avoiding Collisions in Barbados” with Mark Corbin, Director of Network Resilience at Transport for West Midlands, United Kingdom. Copies of the books were also presented to Deputy Chief Technical Officer of Design Services, Jason Bowen.
The Permanent Secretary noted that one of the biggest challenges is protecting vulnerable road users, and said the Ministry would do whatever it could to assist in reducing the number of accidents and fatalities in this category. This, he remarked, included increasing public education about road safety.
“We want to make our roads as safe as possible for everyone, but especially for our vulnerable road users,” he explained, outlining that this group of people included pedestrians, particularly children, elderly and disabled people; cyclists and bicyclists, as well as road construction workers and cleaners.
Mr. Cummins thanked Mr. Blades for the books and assured him that they would be used as resource materials within the Ministry’s departments and for its public education campaigns.
Mr. Blades, said he has observed that many road users are very ignorant of the law. He believes “Avoiding Collisions in Barbados” would be an asset in educating all road users on road traffic laws, and how to properly use the road.
Mr. Blades added that in writing the two books, particularly the Children’s Highway Code, he wanted to contribute to the development of driving and road safety in Barbados.
Stating that he needed to play his part in sensitising future road users, he said he is willing to design and teach courses to educate children about road safety in Barbados.
The road safety author has already presented 120 copies of the Children’s Highway Code to the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, to be used as resource material within public and private primary schools on the island.