With three road deaths in five days, and seven deaths since the beginning of the year, one wonders just what it will take for people to stop driving recklessly on the roads.

Appeals to the public, advertising campaign, Project Ride, occasional Police crackdowns and so forth have all been tried, seemingly to no avail.

Other solutions should be tried before throwing in the towel.

One would be to increase penalties for driving offences. Bermuda used to have relatively stiff fines and driving bans, but dropped them, largely because it was creating a path to prison for people who regularly breached driving bans. It is time to bring back higher penalties. As a deterrent, they worked.

Secondly, consideration should be given to installing speed bumps at frequent accident spots, similar to the ones installed in Hamilton.

While a direct correlation between speeding and crashes cannot always be drawn, few would dispute that speeding is a contagion in Bermuda. Forcing people to slow down in areas where accidents are frequent would at least make drivers think, and might reduce the collision and death rate.

This newspaper has already proposed making Project Ride mandatory for all young drivers. this is not foolproof, but it will instill good driving habits among the young that they should take with them as they progress to adulthood and car licences.

Equally, training for older riders getting licences for the first time and for tourists also needs to be improved.

It may appear that much of what is being written here is for bike riders, and there is good reason for this. The vast majority of road deaths and serious injuries involve motorcycle and auxiliary cycle riders. Reducing the accident rate for cycles is the first step to reducing road deaths and injuries for everyone. In the end, improving road safety depends on every single person in the community doing their part to obey the rules of the road and basic safety rules, including using seat belts and avoiding cell phone use.

Of course, it takes more than that; a careful driver is always at risk from a careless one. This means that drivers need to learn the art of defensive driving, and watching others carefully.