The courts are packed daily with speeders and other traffic violators... a reflection of the task facing officers of the Traffic Unit. To gain an insight on life on the roads from a motorcycle policeman's perspective, Lifestyle's Lawrence Trott and photographer David Skinner recently accompanied head of the Traffic Unit, Insp. Chris Spencer, on an evening shift in an unmarked car as his officers carried out their duties.

It is 1.30 in the morning and while the traffic headed west in Southampton is lighter than hours earlier, there is still plenty of activity for the four officers of the Bermuda Police Service's Traffic Unit.

Almost half of the speeding tickets issued by the officers on that shift, which started at 6 p.m, will be issued from that one spot. One man clocked at 76km/h told the officer who pulled him over that he had only regained driving privileges last month.

In about a 90-minute period some 15 tickets will be issued to speeders who thought the hour would lend itself to a quick ride home.

One driver wasn't speeding at all, but one of the officers recognised him as a disqualified driver and a colleague was dispatched to pull him over. It turns out not only was he `off the road', but he was also arrested and taken to Hamilton Police Station to be booked on a charge of being in possession of drugs with intent to supply.

"If we hadn't had an escort and had come straight up here we would have caught so many speeders it would have been ridiculous," said the officer who operated the laser gun that night. It isn't just speeders that the Traffic Unit have to deal with. Earlier in the evening three motorcycle officers escorted a truck carrying the concert stage owned by Government from Bernard Park to King Square, St. George's.

On the way back the officers stopped cars and bikes on Kindley Field Road after keen eyes noticed such things as expired licence stickers on a couple of cars. Calls back to `Com Ops' (Communication and Operations) checked on validity of drivers' licenses and outstanding warrants for such things as unpaid fines. In a matter of seconds the information comes back.

A couple of cars did have expired stickers, in one case the excuse from the driver was that he was repairing the car for the owner. That car had a May 2003 sticker while another car stopped minutes later was displaying a November 2002 sticker.

Further up the road there was as minor accident to deal with on Flatts Hill where a young female driver, attempting to turn around and park in front of Twin's Variety, smashed into the front fender of a parked car. After exchanging particulars the matter was resolved amicably.

On this particular night it was the speeders getting all the attention, though the officers were also on the lookout for other offences such as running red lights and stop sights and unfastened helmets.

Police recognise that the best way to tackle the rising number of offences being committed is through education.

"We have a Selective Targeted Enforcement Programme, or STEP as it is called, and in this programme we try to highlight three offences that we are going to pay particular attention to over the course of a period," explained Sgt. Val Holder, one of the officers on patrol that night.

"We normally choose a three-month period when we highlight these offences. As an example, we might highlight unfastened helmets, tints and lights on vehicles. We've got vehicles with different colour lights on the windscreen washers.

"We try to educate the public by telling them what the offences are, what the penalties are and letting them know we will be enforcing the offences and that there will be zero tolerance towards them.

"After we have educated the public about them and told them what we are going to do, then we're going to go and ticket all those offences.

"After a three-month period we will see if there is still that behaviour being exhibited. Hopefully there will be a decrease in it, but if we find there isn't a decrease we will revisit it for another three months or maybe continue with the offence we are having problems with and maybe add two other offences to it.

"We started it back in August 2001 and did it in conjunction with the Road Safety Council. Dr. (Joseph) Froncioni was very much a part of this exercise."

Added Sgt. Holder: "For the next three months we will be targeting tint again, because of the increase of tinted windows and how dark they are and the potential for these vehicles to be involved in some type of criminal activity and not being able to recognise the driver or the occupants.

"Lighting offences is a bit of a concern for us as well, with different colour lights on the front of the vehicle.blue, red, green, yellow, but blue and red in particular because those are the colours designated for emergency vehicles. If those colours are carried on the front it can be misleading for other members of the motoring public.

"The third one are the helmet offences because of the rate of accidents we are having. It (unfastened straps) is a bit of a fad but it is not being safe and we have got to be concerned about the safety of people, even though they are supposed to be rational thinking adults."

Speed, he points out, is a constant and will continue to be on the department's list of targeted offences.

"We've had people get booked and were so upset they wanted to see the operator (of the laser gun). then they get caught speeding again going back to the operator," said the officer handling the laser gun last Friday night when The Royal Gazette accompanied them.

"That's happened to a lot of us."

Anywhere between 50 to 60 speeders booked is considered an average night, but on this night there were 34 speeders, including some from an earlier location, East Broadway in Hamilton.

The following night another 30 speeders were issued tickets, with all but five over travelling over 60km/h along St. David's Road. There were also four other arrests, three for outstanding warrants and one for impaired driving.

The Traffic Unit, headed by Inspector Chris Spencer, has booked 3,808 speeders in the six month period between December 1, 2002 and May 31, 2003. It is designed to curb the rising speeds on Bermuda's roads but it doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent.

"People will pretty much pay any fine you give them, `just don't take my licence'," said Insp. Spencer who recently attended a three-week Police Administration Course in Ottawa, Canada.

"Back in the day when you would get three years for 66km and five years for 85km, those were the days when you had a lot more respect on the street from motorists. I know it goes both ways but the attitudes were totally different.

"The guys can go out on a Sunday afternoon and in two-and-a-half hours can come back with 110, 120 tickets. Each operator has his favourite spots and knows where to go."

Insp. Spencer denied that the officers have to meet a certain quota of tickets each month and, yes, officers can let motorists off with a warning.

"That's within their powers of discretion," he pointed out. "I can never stop a guy from making a judgment call at the time."

"These efforts appear to be futile because the collision rate continues to rise," said Insp. Spencer who has been a Policeman for 24 years, mostly in the motorcycle department.

Last Friday night he accompanied his officers in an unmarked car and saw for himself the challenges still facing the Traffic Unit. Statistics he shared with us shows that since 1962 a total of 448 persons have died on Bermuda's roads, roughly 75 percent on motorcycles. Already this year there have been five fatalities, including three in car crashes.

The year before crash helmets became compulsory in the mid-1970s there were about 23 fatalities. Seventeen died on the road in 1998. "We get 45 to 50 collisions on an annual basis which result in head injuries," Insp. Spencer said. "A lot of it is because the person isn't wearing their helmet properly. The minimum stay (in hospital) is four to five days and head injuries are automatically ICU (intensive care unit cases) which is $4,500 a day, so do the math. Insurance companies or parents of the uninsured are forking out well over $1 million a year on head injuries. Dr. Froncioni (chairman of the Road Safety Council and also a surgeon) gave me that information because I sit on the Road Safety Council as well."

Adding to the stress of an understaffed department (there are 15 officers on two teams in the Traffic Unit) is the difficult task of telling a family at four in the morning that they have lost a child in a road accident. All such fatalities are handled by the Traffic Unit.

"Sgt. Holder and I are part of the Traffic Collision Investigative team - I'm the National Traffic Co-ordinator - so for all serious, very serious and fatal collisions, he and I, nine times out of ten, will be there," Insp. Spencer stated.

"Our office deals with the investigation of it. I will get a call at 5 o'clock in the morning, get to the scene and start to put the wheels in motion. It's requires a lot of teamwork and we have gotten it down to a mad science now where everything seems to fall into place."

The role of the Police in such incidents are often taken for granted but they have a major challenge maintaining law and order on Bermuda's streets.

"We realise enforcement alone is not the answer, that there is a lot of education that needs to take place," said Insp. Spencer.

"But we are the law enforcement agency on the island. We need the community's help to deal with it, help from TCD, the Road Safety Council, parents, civilian driving instructors, the courts and it's going to take a community effort in order to get the streets back to what they used to be. when there was courtesy and respect.

"People have a tendency to forget the other side of a fatality, meaning the Police side. These guys go through a lot, and it starts from me having to call them at three or four in the morning and saying `you're next in line, we have another one'.

"They go to the scene and don't know what they are going to see when they get there. I don't know how it's going to affect them. Guys don't like going to fatals or knocking on people's doors. I do it sometimes just to keep them away from it.

"As the law enforcement agency we get in on the wrong end, when there is already a problem. Then it's too late, sometimes, when we have to deal with situations. If we focus on education we can prevent a lot of the stuff taking place. I would like to see driver education as part of the curriculum in all schools, even an hour a week on driver education in the senior schools."

According to Insp. Spencer there were 43,977 vehicles registered in Bermuda up to February 1, 2003, with 17,880 of those motorcycles. "The density of motor traffic on the road is one of the highest in the world - with close to 2,100 vehicles per square mile," he revealed. "The biggest problem we have is the trailing distance, which has a two-second rule."

Later in the night a motorist pulled over on a traffic stop is found to have a warrant out for his arrest. He is escorted to the Hamilton Police Station where he was charged with the non-payment of two fines totalling $290. If the sum isn't forthcoming that night he will spend the night in a cell. After that the Unit responds to a call about youths tampering with two bikes on Fort Hill, just a few yards from the back entrance of Police Headquarters.

A Police truck arrives to collect the bikes and accompanying the driver in the truck are two underage boys, 14 and 15, who were caught riding a stolen bike.

That bike was also on the truck, headed for the Impound while the boys were taken to Hamilton Police Station to await the arrival of their parents.

A laser gun trap is set up on East Broadway where speeders are caught entering and leaving the city. The 750cc bikes can reach a speed of 80km in less than three seconds, so speeders are often shocked to see the Police in their rearview mirror.

Booking speeders can be an unpopular job for the officers but they are simply doing their jobs and most people accept that. Insp. Spencer speaks well of the officers under his charge and admits it takes a special officer to work in that department. He looked for those qualities when interviewing recently for two vacancies that needed to be filled.

"I'm proud of these guys," he says, noting that they often deal with anything from escorts to bike thefts to even a narcotics arrest during a regular shift, as well as maintaining law and order on the roads.

"They just deal with any and everything," said Insp. Spencer adds. "I've seen times where guys would finish at 3 o'clock in the morning, a fatal happened at 4.20 and the officer was just walking into the door at home. They get a call, `we've had another fatality' and would immediately come back without complaining."