It seems not a week goes by when we learn of motor vehicular accidents here in the Cayman Islands that are caused by cars speeding.

When the speeding involves cars actually racing one another on our public roads at night or early morning the speeding takes even more of a worrying turn.

So many of these drivers and their passengers have either been killed through speeding or seriously injured.

The two young idiots who were allegedly racing against one another going east on Shamrock Road when their cars left the road around 1.12am Sunday (3) and hit the Prospect Playhouse sign and the jerk chicken stand, are both very lucky, not only to be alive, but the injuries they sustained were not life threatening. Miraculously they were both discharged from hospital after being treated at the George Town Hospital.

Are they going to thank God for their lucky escape? Probably not. But I thank God they did not suffer more and I thank God an innocent member of the public was not involved.

People who drive cars at great speed and race on our public highways have no thought of danger to themselves or anyone else. They have no thought of obeying the laws of the road that are there to not only protect them, but other road users and non-road users. They have no thought that their actions could cause remorse and grievous suffering to their loved ones they either leave behind or have to cope with looking at the terrible injuries they could have suffered from.

Whatever the reason for the suspicious accident the mess these two ‘boys’ have left behind has to be cleared up. They damaged property and involved third parties in losses.

Can you image the carnage that could have been caused by these two young men, one aged 18 and the other at 21, if there had been persons buying, serving and eating food at the jerk chicken stand.  Can you imagine if persons were just leaving the Prospect Playhouse theatre? And not to forget the Red Bay School is next door.

Jerk stall owner Andre Alexander was reported as saying that groups of young people gather in their cars in the early hours of Sunday in the area to race along the road.

“This needs to be quashed. This isn’t just about what happened to the jerk stand. You have people walking home after work in restaurants along that road at that time of night. There could be loss of life,” he said.

He is right.

I was somewhat unhappy, however, about the statement from Royal Cayman Islands Police Service’s Chief Inspector Angelique Howell:

“We have gotten complaints that people tend to be speeding in that area. It’s something that we are addressing and there will be some focus on this area.”

It’s a pity it wasn’t addressed much sooner. And there is now some focus on this area.