Not one death on Bermuda’s roads is acceptable. And after a weekend when the country has buried one young man, while two fortunate others are recuperating in hospital, our leaders must continue to grapple with ways by which we can reach farther into the minds, hearts and tucked-away brain matter of our citizens.

It is OK for the Bermuda Police Service and road safety officials to be slapping themselves on the backs for 2015 representing an 11-year low for deaths on our ultra-dangerous roads.

But, hold on.

Tell that to the families of Jereme Cumbermack, Richard Thomas, Arai Joell-Johnston, La-Nae Woodley, Troy Hewey, Leon Smith and Philip Benjamin James.

Don’t get us wrong, we are not having a pop at the police or the likes of the Road Safety Council and Cada, Encouraging Responsible Alcohol Behaviour. They are doing good things and are to be commended for their perseverance against a tide of indifference, but in reality they are chasing their tails because too many of the selfish among us — and that is a staggeringly high percentage — just don’t want to know.

This country should not be burying men and women of adolescent years because we struggle perennially to get the message across. Such behaviour speaks to Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

There was something truly disturbing about Ben James’s photograph appearing in the obituaries section of Friday’s newspaper, surrounded as it was by many dearly departed who had lived their lives to the fullest — five in their nineties, three in their eighties.

Then there was this 21-year-old, looking handsome and proudly donning a graduation cap, the universal signal that a young person’s best years are ahead of them.

It looked desperately out of place. But there he was, no longer with us, and laid to rest yesterday.

Every Bermudian and Bermuda resident should look upon that montage of deceased and acknowledge that something is not right. It can’t be. And then they should feel anger, and no small helping of shame.

Shame because every household should bear some responsibility for sending out on to our roads people who have no regard for their safety and the safety of others.

Days such as yesterday at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southampton are all so avoidable. Yet the numbers we have racked up through the years are frightening, and even more damaging statistically than those brought about by the truly reprehensible cowards who have terrorised the Island with guns, knives and baseball bats for the past decade or more.

So how do we tackle this? What more help can be given to the authorities, who must be at their wit’s end with every road fatality, intertwined with the voluminous reports of crash victims who keep the hospital’s A&E department in gainful employment.

You may note that it is with intent that the word “accident” is not used here as opposed to “crash”, given that there is little accidental about travelling at dangerous speed.

Joseph Froncioni proposed last year during the road safety summit that it should be made harder for would-be motorists to gain their licences by way of the introduction of a comprehensive graduated licence programme.

The belief is that it is too easy for a licence to be granted and statistics that show that those between the ages of 16 and 18 represent the age group with the greatest number of A&E incidents appear to support that.

It is true that there is no age bias in relation to deaths on our roads, but bad habits and disregard for safety must start somewhere, and that is most likely to come from the outset of the motoring experience.

So one obvious solution is to raise the minimum age to ride an auxiliary cycle from 16 to 18. Were that the case in 2015, Arai Joell-Johnston would still be with us and the two 17-year-olds involved in that horrific crash last Tuesday would not be in hospital still recovering from a near-death experience that no teenager should have to endure.

For it to work, the public transportation system would have to be overhauled to cope with a sudden rush of demand, with a slew of additional students aged 16 and 17 relying on it to get around.

It is worth adding, by way of showing that too few of our young people are heeding the tragic events of the past, that the most recent crash was just about where La-Nae Woodley was killed last year and not very far from the crashes that claimed Jereme Cumbermack and Richard Thomas, with Arai Joell-Johnston the width of Manse Road away in the same zone on Harbour Road.

It almost begs for a return of the deathly manikins that were placed in danger spots and areas where there had been fatal crashes to remind those who feel invincible what could happen on any given day when they put themselves first and everyone else, including family, second.

As gruesomely graphic as possible, please. It may not be the most appealing sight for a tourist to happen upon, but it may be of assistance to them, too. Anything to present a daily reminder — shock and awe, if you will — that we have not advanced as far in the adherence of road safety as we should have by now.

Tradition is that the 15-year-old cannot wait for that 16th birthday present — a brand new, shiny bike. But Bermuda has shown that it is too immature and too backward to stop gift-wrapping our children death sentences.

So let’s have them wait for a few years and save some lives in the process while making the roads more tolerable in one fell swoop.

The education gained in the intervening years, not to mention greater maturity, would bode well so that future generations never have to laud that “only seven” people were killed over a 12-month period on an island that has a 20mph (35km/h) speed limit.

No parent should have to bury their child. It is time for the “children” to appreciate that.