By: Spokesman Newsroom

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 4th September 2025)-With schools across the Federation reopening this week, police are urging motorists to be extra careful on the roads around children. 

Appearing as a guest on ‘Policing With You’, a weekly programme of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force (hosted by G-Cue) aired live on ZIZ on Thursday 4th September 2025, Inspector Shawna Edwards emphasized that road safety must remain a priority as special focus was put on school children safety. 

“Road safety really, it involves preventing death, serious injury to all road users and it includes drivers and pedestrians and cyclists through their actions by obeying speed limits, wearing seat belts, not driving under the influence, all those comes under road safety. But the end result is for you to be alive at the end of the day. It’s to prevent death and serious injury,” she said.

Commenting on why the discussion was focusing so much on children, Inspector Edwards shared: Schools just resumed here on Monday, and we know that bus drivers, some of them do take children to school. You have other private vehicles that take children to school. You have children who beg, live with other drivers… and it’s a lot of traffic. During the vacation, it was a lot of traffic but when school is on, it’s even more. So we have to pay particular attention to our children.”

Inspector Edwards noted that while some children are properly guided, many are still distracted and inattentive.

“I think some of them, they’re just absent-minded, and they just tell themselves, well, if the vehicle is coming down the road and I’m crossing, they’re supposed to stop. But it’s not like that. You don’t know the condition of the vehicle that the driver is in. So you have to be very particular.”

She noted that some children may be distracted being on their phones also.

She added that teaching basic habits such as look left, look right, and then look left again must be reinforced.

“But we have children who don’t bother with that. Their minds are taken up with maybe technology, they have a phone in their hand, they’re playing games, and they’re not cognizant that they’re going into harm’s way.”

According to Edwards, drivers must exercise maximum responsibility: “If you do hit someone in the road, 99% of the time, the driver is wrong. 99% of the time.”

She pointed to a troubling trend of reckless and impatient driving. “We have persons who are before the court for reckless driving, we have persons who are before the court for causing death by dangerous driving and reckless driving. And I am sure you are aware of the ending of last year and early this year where we had a number of fatalities and some of them involved, you had children involved, you had adults involved, you had elderly people involved. So it doesn’t matter the age, a life is a life and it is important and we need to take care of our young people… they are our future.”

Inspector Edwards also reminded pedestrians to make proper use of crossings saying: “The pedestrian crossing is the safest way to cross the road. Especially where we have the traffic lights now installed, couple years now… Once you stay by the pedestrian crossing, you only pass when you get the signal from the stoplights to cross. You will see a silhouette or a shadow of a man. That’s when it is safe to cross.”

She stressed that drivers must remember that having the green light does not mean they can ignore pedestrians.

“Not because you have the green light mean that I must drive fast. No, it doesn’t. You still have to be careful. Granted. That way too, the driver gets to see you. Because if you’re not using the pedestrian crossing, chances are when you dash cross, sometimes it’s too late.”

Inspector Edwards outlined the importance of obeying traffic lights at all times:

“We have the red light – it means stop. It doesn’t have any other connotation to it except stop. The amber light, it’s warning you that the light is going to change so you have to proceed with caution. It doesn’t mean that you speed up as a driver. It means you have to pay caution; that the light can change in a second or two. It doesn’t mean that you must put the pedal to the metal. And then the green, it gives you a clear indication that you are safe to drive. When it’s red, you stop. When it’s green, you go.”

Front Page Photo: Image of parked omni buses at a bus stop area in College Street used for illustration purposes only (Spokesman file photo)

Photo: Inspector Shawna Edwards appearing as a guest on Policing With You on Thursday 4th September 2025 (credit: Youtube.com/ZIZonline)