On the morning of September 3, police officers issued 135 traffic tickets between 5am and 10am. Seventy-one of those were for speeding.

At around 11.35am that same day, a 19-year-old motorcyclist was killed in a collision, on South Road, Southampton. The investigation into his death is ongoing and it would be both unfair and irresponsible to suggest that the two events were connected. They are simply two facts from the same morning.

But there is an uncomfortable 95-minute gap between them.

The gap is wide open, not an invitation to speed past it like so many of us might when we see an open stretch of road but rather an invitation to proceed with the next phase of the road safety strategy.

Since the press conference in early August, the police action and enforcement side of the Government's approach has been delivered.

On the first weekend of the renewed campaign, police issued 75 tickets in 15 hours, 60 of them for speeding. The following Monday saw nearly 70 tickets. The day after that, a joint operation with the Transport Control Department produced close to 120 more. Then came September 3: 135 tickets and one road fatality.

Officers have been brought in on overtime, police visibility has increased and, by all accounts, the motoring public have taken notice.

But enforcement has a particular limitation: it requires manpower. An officer at the side of the road changes behaviour while he or she is standing there, staring down the barrel of his speed-detection gun. Redeploy that officer elsewhere and the behaviour on that road may revert to what it was.

This is where the less glamorous side of road safety matters.

Paint doesn't go home at the end of a shift. A properly positioned sign takes no lunch breaks and requires no overtime. A junction layout redesigned to make a dangerous manoeuvre harder does not feature in anyone’s salary projections. A speed indicator that flashes at you to slow down is still there at 3am, 9am and at 11.35am.

I'm not arguing against enforcement; it needs to be part of the calculus. But what about the other side of the equation?

When Owen Darrell, the transport minister, announced the Government's road safety strategy in August, he set out five pillars, one of which was engineering, with the stated ambition of reducing road deaths and serious injuries by half by 2030.

The logic underpinning these two pillars is not complicated. While it is not credible to say that better driver behaviour will prevent every death on the roads, it is sound reasoning to think that a fall in collisions will reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries.

The common drivers of both outcomes are speed and lack of attention. By way of comparison, in London last year, speed was cited as a contributing factor in at least 51 per cent of all fatal collisions, using categories including: exceeding the limit, careless or driving in a hurry and travelling too fast for the conditions.

Over the past decade, London has combined enforcement, speed cameras and physical changes to its roads. The risk of a motorcyclist being killed per journey has fallen by more than two thirds compared with the 2010-14 baseline. That drop is significant, but London’s work still falls short of its own 2030 target of a 70 per cent reduction in people killed or seriously injured.

The work is slow and gradual, which unfortunately doesn’t lend itself to “quick win” politics.

Bermuda’s ambitious 2030 target needs long-term investment and commitment. That ambition will need to be driven by more than the regular release of enforcement figures.

Since the announcement, there has been little to nothing on new road markings, signage, speed indication devices, or other physical interventions.

Frustratingly, Bermuda does not need to find the money. This year’s budget already contains $5 million for capital repaving, and $7.29 million for the highways programme, which includes road signs and markings.

The money is there. The mandate is there. The roads are there.

What looks to be missing is a visible sense of urgency.

To be clear, road design and improvements are not a magic bullet. Speed-indicator devices can reduce speeds, but their effect diminishes over time as drivers get used to them. That is why rotation between locations should be factored in, rather than installed ones that are forgotten.

Being honest about the caveats matters. Road safety is not remedied by a shopping list of signs and gadgets nor is it a problem that money alone will solve.

The Commissioner of Police has stated as much himself, in more pointed terms. Darrin Simons said that police had previously operated at three times the normal level of enforcement and still saw similar rates of serious injury and death. 2024, a statistically better year with seven road deaths recorded, came at a time when enforcement was significantly lower.

As Mr Simons put it, enforcement is “just one significant variable in the whole road harm picture”.

There is a due date looming.

Former Minister of National Security Michael Weeks said that the speed camera system would be up and running in September. We are now in September. The portfolio has since changed hands, but the practical realities are more complicated.

The commissioner said in June that some cameras could be operational in September, but that full deployment and ticketing was unlikely before Christmas. Now the first speed cameras were installed on Friday but require testing.

That delay is understandable. Cameras require procurement, processing staff and amended legislation. The current budget allocation is $272,000 a year over the next five years.

But compare that with what can be done now.

Paint requires a work order, material, and being listed on a work sheet for a particular week. Road signage requires someone to decide what is needed, where it is needed, install it, and maintain it.

Bermuda cannot police every dangerous stretch of road and it cannot police its way out of the crisis of road safety, fatalities and injuries that we are currently living through.

It should not try to.

The Government sounds serious about 2030.

The question is whether the road itself is going to start doing some of the heavy lifting.

• Paolo Odoli is a captain in the Royal Bermuda Regiment, on leave of absence in Italy. He is a former aide-de-camp to two Bermuda governors of Bermuda and a former government communications officer