Road Safety Signs - A Signature Project by the Lions and Leos

The occurrence of road traffic accidents in the Cayman Islands is high and in recent times has become quite frequent on Cayman Brac.  In the past we have had fatalities ranging from the young to the old. We can all perhaps recall the very sad moments within the past 8 years where young members of the Brac community lost their lives in road accidents and those whose lives have been significantly hampered and perhaps forever.   Accidents happen for varied reasons, but it appears that speeding and drunk driving have topped the list as main causes; ones we can prevent.

It is with this in mind that the Lions Club of Cayman Brac decided to focus on road safety as a signature project for the year 2010-2011. The young men and women of the Leos Club of Cayman Brac saw the importance of such a project and also decided to join their mother-club in supporting the project.  They did their own fundraising and were able to financially support the project.

The club did much groundwork to mobilize the project.  This included collaboration with the RCIP Cayman Brac in identifying the most urgent areas to be targeted. Through such collaborative efforts, the club decided to focus on three themes: Seatbelt, Speeding, and Drunk Driving.

In an attempt to increase awareness and engage the youth in the project, the club launched a competition among the Cayman Brac High School students for creating the slogans for the signs.  An assembly was conducted at the school where students were encouraged to think about the three themes.  Video clippings were shown emphasizing of the importance of road safety under the same three themes and students invited to enter the contest. Joel Gayle emerged the winner of the competition. The slogans he came up with were;

“Buckle Up or be Buckled Under”

“You think you have skills… Speed kills”,

“Don’t drink and drive… Stay alive”

These slogans will forever be etched in the minds of all passers-by.

On Sunday morning of March 20^th, we officially mounted the first sign, focusing on the use of seat belts, south of the Cayman Brac High school. In attendance were Sister Islands MLA Mr. Moses Kirkconnel, District Commissioner Mr. Ernie Scott, Lions Club District 60B Governor Lion June McCatty MJF, District 60B Region 4 Chairman Lion Catherine Peart MJF, Representative from the RCIP Cayman Brac, Principal of the Cayman Brac High School Mr. Adrian Jones, Supervisor of the Cayman Brac Day Care Center Mrs. Neila Jones, Lion Stanley Scott of Grand Cayman Lions Club, Cayman Brac Lions Club President Yvette Gayle, Cayman Brac Leo President Katherine Lazzari and other members of the Lions and Leo club of Cayman Brac.  The club is very thankful to Scotts Industries and Mr. Moses Kirkconnell for also partnering with us. Their generous contribution to the project is greatly appreciated. Funds for the project were raised mainly through Movie Nights held by the Lions and Leos.  In addition, the Leos sold Roses, Carnations and Chocolates on Valentine’s Day and used funds from the sale to support the project.

D-Signs Ltd in Grand Cayman was responsible for the production of the signs while the Public Works Department on Cayman Brac through Mr. Ernie Scott provided some labour in securing the posts in the ground.

The project is a community effort and the Lions and Leo club are all about serving the community. The clubs consider this a very important project and see this as phase 1 of many more phases.  In this phase we will complete the mounting of 4 signs.  We want to produce and mount another 4 making it a total of 8, as well as find other strategies to continue educating the public about the importance of safety on the roads.  To this end, we are still appealing to any individual or organization who would like to support us in furthering this project to contact us at cblions@candw.ky.  Articles and photos of our ongoing projects can be found on our BLOG at www.braclions.blogspot.com  Our aim is to help reduce road accidents in our community and ultimately protect lives.  We urge everyone to think before they act.  The life we save could very well be our own. 

See Caymannewsservice weblink to this article:
http://www.caymannewsservice.com/local-news/2011/03/28/stark-warnings-unsafe-drivers-cayman-brac