ROAD traffic accidents cost Bermuda an estimated $40 million a year, or 1.5 per cent of its Gross National Product.

That includes insurance premiums, loss of production to the economy, health care, police and emergency services, days off work and overtime, among other things.

And, as a direct result of the increase in road traffic accidents, motor and health insurance continue to increase by ten per cent every year.

Last year, 14 fatalities and 2,839 collisions were reported on the island’s roads, compared to 13 deaths and 2,934 collisions in 2005. Since January 2002, there have been 61 deaths on Bermuda’s roads.

According to the Bermuda Police Service’s annual report, 178 injuries last year were considered serious, while 900 people were “slightly injured”, many of whom were seen by doctors at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital’s emergency room.

The Deputy Director of the Emergency Department at KEMH, Dr. Roslyn Bascombe-Adams, said a total of 785 people were seen last year in the emergency room following car and bike collisions. Seven of these included pedestrians.

Because police report 1,092 people were injured in accidents last year, Dr. Bascombe-Adams believes many did not seek medical assistance at all.

However, between April 2006 and March this year, ten patients were admitted to Intensive Care Unit (ICU) from the emergency department as a result of road traffic accidents.

Dr. Bascombe-Adams explained that these ten patients spent a total of 50 days in the ICU. Five consequently died.

Four years ago, then-chairman of the Road Safety Council, Dr. Joseph Froncioni, warned that Bermuda spent in excess of $1 million a year on treating serious road crash victims in the ICU.

Dr. Froncioni said an average of 40 serious head injuries caused by smashes were treated every year and it cost about $5,000 to treat just one person for one day in the specialist unit, so if every one of the 40 patients remained in the ICU for five days, the bill would reach a staggering $1 million.

KEMH was unable to provide an updated figure, but if this amount still applied, then the ten patients who spent an estimated 50 days in ICU cost a whopping $2.5 million.

So far this year six people have died in road traffic accidents and Dr. Bascombe-Adams pointed out that between January and March this year, 110 victims of road traffic collisions made their way to the emergency room. This included one pedestrian.

She is convinced this figure will increase significantly in the next four months.

Dr. Bascombe-Adams pointed out that May to August were the “busiest” months, accounting for 371 of last year’s emergency room visit — nearly 50 per cent of the year’s total.

Globally, road traffic accidents have surpassed Aids as the leading cause of death among young people between the ages of ten and 24.

This is according to a report published by the World Health Organisation last year, Youth and Road Safety<$>, which stated that nearly 400,000 young people under the age of 25 are killed in road traffic accidents across the globe every year, while millions more are injured or disabled.

In Bermuda, those between the ages of 16 and 30 accounted for 1,465 of last year’s road traffic accidents, while 1,113 accidents involved persons aged 41 to 50 and those between the ages of 31 and 40 caused 1,092 accidents.

According to the annual police report, cars accounted for 210 single-vehicle accidents, while motorcycle/scooters and auxiliary cycles accounted for 200.

How does this affect the everyday road user?

Argus Insurance president and CEO Gerald Simons yesterday said health insurance premiums continued to increase, and over the last five years premiums had gone up by more than ten per cent every year.

“What we’re seeing is car and motor insurance premiums rising at the same rate as health insurance premiums,” he added.

With the increase in the number of accidents, Mr. Simons said all insurers feared being hit with large liability claims by insured drivers sued in the courts.

“We cover up to $5 million in protection in such cases,” he added.

Mr. Simons was confident that the police, the Road Safety Council, insurance industry and the public at large were looking at ways to address the issue of reckless driving.

“I’m hopeful this is an issue that we’ll be able to tackle rather quickly.”

He also felt it would be a lot easier to deal with than the company’s “Wellness Campaign”.

The CEO of BF&M Insurance, John Wight, also confirmed that its cost of claims had risen by 20 per cent on a cumulative basis over the last two years.

As one of the leading motor insurers in Bermuda, BF&M last year launched a safe driving campaign, which Mr. Wight hoped would cause people to heed warnings about speed and drinking and driving, but it had no effect.

“Instead of seeing a decrease in the amount of road accidents, there were more fatalities.”

Meanwhile, orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Froncioni is hopeful that a major study on road accidents over the last four years will shed some light on the reason behind an increase in road deaths. As founder of Bermuda SmartRisk, Dr. Froncioni hopes to produce information which will be useful to the public and those in the industry.

He said the idea of Bermuda SmartRisk (which is a branch of the Canadian-based organisation) was to help young drivers make “smart risks”.

“Taking a risk is acting before thinking. If you ride your bike without a helmet, you’re taking a risk without thinking about the options you have. You’re limiting yourself. If you fall, you have a good chance of injuring yourself,” he explained.

“But if you choose to take a smart risk and ride with a helmet, you reduce your odds. You have a much greater chance of getting back up on your bike, making it home and taking another ride the next day.”

Dr. Froncioni said taking a “smart risk” was simply looking at your choices when faced with risk.

“We don’t want to discourage youngsters by telling them what they should and shouldn’t be doing, but we want to encourage them to think before they act.”

The chairman of the Road Safety Council, Dr. Christopher Johnson, was unavailable for comment.