Three road fatalities in SVG for 2015?

With seven students having died as a result of the January 12 motor vehicular accident at Rock Gutter, how then could the death of South Rivers resident Akisha Henson, on March 5, be reported as the third road fatality for 2015?

Superintendent Kenneth John, who heads of the traffic department of the Royal{{more}} St Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVGPF), explained that while seven deaths were recorded in the Rock Gutter tragedy, they are counted as one.

“Ever since, that is how the statistics are being done,” the superintendent told SEARCHLIGHT yesterday. “So you have seven persons [who] died as a result of that one accident.”

He further stressed that no matter how many persons died in a single road accident, it will always be classified as one.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Factbook, a road fatality is defined as a person who is killed immediately or who dies within 30 days as a result of a road accident.

There have therefore been three fatal road accidents, resulting in nine fatalities or deaths.

The second road accident for 2015, which resulted in one fatality, occurred in February, when on February 5, 14-year-old Mojuan Henville was hit by a motor vehicle, while he was riding a bicycle along the Vigie Highway. The West St George Secondary School student died on February 9, at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.

Akisha Henson, a delivery clerk at the St Vincent and the Grenadines Port Authority, was killed on March 5, when the vehicle she was travelling in ran off the road. Reports state that Henson was attempting to exit the vehicle when it overturned.