Two senior statesmen have called on Government to act on the recent road deaths of two American tourists.

Former Premier Sir John Swan said the Island should join the majority of countries and start driving on the right-hand side of the road. He also called for the introduction of speed cameras and rigid enforcement of the speed limit.

Former Public Safety Minister Quinton Edness said visitors should be allowed to rent three- and four-wheeled vehicles and that rules for renting cycles to visitors should be tightened up.

Their calls come following the death of two tourists on the Island's roads earlier this month. Linda Elizabeth Inman, 50, of Illinois died last Thursday following an accident near Mullet Bay in St. George's. The bike, driven by her husband who is still in hospital, hit a bus.

Early this month, mother-of-three Rosemary Bigelow, 50, of Malvern, Pennsylvania was killed when her rental scooter hit a tractor trailer on Middle Road as she left Paget Plaza.

Sir John said that the speed limit should be rigidly enforced and penalties should be severe.

"What we need to do is look at either putting in the appropriate cameras as soon as possible throughout the Island and really policing the speed limit, number one.

"Number two, we are a British colony but that does not mean that we have always complied with all the things that are British, particularly if they don't work for us. A good example is the fact that we are stuck driving on the left hand side of the road."

Sir John said that since most countries in the world ? including North America, the source for the majority of Bermuda's visitors ? drive on the right side of the road it was time to consider conforming to what the tourists were used to in their homelands.

"What we have to do is look realistically if this is a problem whether we should be driving on the other side of the road, on the right hand side of the road," he said adding that the UK is among just a few countries in the world that drives on the left.

"I don't think we get as many English tourists as we used to get, so we're really catering to the people that bring us business which is the North Americans and all of Europe," he said.

"A lot of these accidents are occurring and people panic because they have too much on their minds. They have to worry about too many things, particularly what side of the road they should be on and we're in denial of wanting to keep something that is British and different, but is it practical? We need to take a look at that."

Sir John and Mr. Edness both warned that unless Government tackles the problem there will be severe consequences.

Mr. Edness said: "I am afraid if accidents, and in particular deaths, continue at the present rate, Bermuda will be classified as an unsafe jurisdiction and American tourists will be advised not to come here."

Sir John said: "We cannot continue to have this many fatalities and not expect to have some consequences. We're trying to recover our tourist business and yet the headline going out is the fact that yet another fatality on our roads not only for our tourists but also for our locals."

In a letter addressed to Transport Minister Ewart Brown and copied to Mr. Edness urged Government to make available four and three wheel forms of transport as an alternative to scooters.

He also called for for stricter conditions to be imposed on cycle liveries when renting two wheel cycles to tourists.

"Any tourist who is not familiar with riding a two-wheel motorised cycle should not be permitted to rent one, and there should be severe penalties for cycle liveries who break the rules in that regard.

"Surely we have learned it is not safe to rent a motorised cycle to a tourist who has had only a half hour of training around a cycle livery's parking lot and has perhaps ridden only a pedal bike back home."