In the past month, there have been a number of serious car accidents all over the island with many attributing the cause of accidents to people receiving payments from pandemic relief assistance. The monthly police incident reports showed increase in number of car accident in the month of June but do not show direct correlation between pandemic assistance payment and car accidents.
The last four months incident reports from the Bureau of Public Safety does not show significant increases in number of accidents each month, except for the month of June, as reported on the police weekly blotters.
For example, there were 17 cases of vehicle accidents in the month of March. In April there were total of 16 vehicle accidents and in May, also 16 reported accidents. In June the numbers jumped to 21 reported car accidents. Most of the reported incidents are minor accidents but at least 2 or 3 each month are serious requiring medical attention.
Most of those reported as serious car accidents involved young people and most indicated involvement of alcohol.
Many possible factors could be attributed to increase in June numbers such as school being out, young people not being able to leave island due to flight moratorium, more relaxed atmosphere due to no COVID-19 cases, and lastly, some getting financial compensations from pandemic assistance programs. Based on current reports, no one cause can be attributed to the rise in major car accidents seen within the last month.