Fiji's traffic fatalities hit 5-year high in 2015

A total of 60 people died in traffic-related incidents in Fiji so far this year, the highest in recent five years, the government-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) said Friday.

Mahesh Mishra, a senior police official, said there is an urgent appeal for the general public to be more vigilant on Fiji's roads.

"If you see when we did our analysis on road fatalities compared to last years, and this year we had recorded multiple deaths on single accidents where two or three deaths have occurred and secondly we have recorded this year highest number of pedestrian accidents, pedestrian road fatalities, 23 compared to 11 last year, that is another major concern for us," Mishra told the FBC.

Since the beginning of 2015, Fijian law enforcement agencies have made 43,375 bookings for traffic violations, and speeding accounted for the majority with 28,768 infringements. Of the speeding infringements, 534 cases involved drunk driving.

The Fiji Police Force, together with the Pacific island country's Land Transport Authority, has launched an operation to clamp down on traffic offenders over the next two months in the hope that road fatalities will not increase. Enditem