Two young men died in separate car crashes over the holiday weekend, bringing the number of traffic fatalities for the year to 31.
One of the victims, who was not identified, died after being thrown from a car on Blue Hill Road early yesterday morning; while Kenton Gibson, 22, died when the car he was in overturned on Queen’s Highway in Andros.
In the New Providence accident, the victim was sitting in the back seat of a convertible navy blue Ford Mustang that was being driven near the Golden Gates Shopping Centre when the incident occurred, police said.
“The driver [of the Mustang], who is believed to be a female, was overtaking another vehicle and lost control of her car,” Inspector Walter Evans told the Nassau Guardian yesterday.
“A male rear seat passenger fell from the vehicle and another car that was travelling south struck him. The Ford Mustang continued on and ran into several cars that were parked in a yard on the eastern side of the road.”
The passenger died at the scene and the driver was last night listed in serious condition in hospital.
Just 24 hours earlier, a North Andros man became the country’s thirtieth traffic fatality for the year.
Kenton Gibson died hours into his twenty-second birthday when a car he was a passenger in overturned on Queen’s Highway in Andros.
Between January 2000 and May 2006, 341 traffic fatalities have been recorded. Sixty-eight of those deaths were in the year 2005.
Of the 68, there were 33 fatalities in New Providence, 23 in Grand Bahama, and 12 in the Family Islands. Eighteen of those deaths were pedestrians, 18 passengers, 22 drivers six motorcyclists and four were bicyclists.
In January Superintendent at the Road traffic Division, Burkie Wright, said officers were working on decreasing traffic incidences. He explained that in 2005, 66 regular road checks were carried out by the Traffic Division, which netted 1,111 drivers for exceeding the speed limit, while 11,487 fixed penalty notices were served.
A total of 3,576 road accidents were reported last year and 360 of those drivers left the scene.
By: JASMIN BONIMY, The Nassau Guardian
