Geisha Kow­lessar

With the road fa­tal­i­ty fig­ure for the year stand­ing at 64, head of the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch, act­ing Se­nior Supt Di­anand Naipaul, is de­scrib­ing re­sources as "woe­ful­ly short." It is un­der­stood the ap­proved strength of the Traf­fic Po­lice is close to 400 of­fi­cers but the re­al num­ber is just over half that. "The ac­tu­al strength is about 150 peo­ple, less than the sanc­tioned strength," Naipaul said yes­ter­day.

A ma­jor chal­lenge, he said, was pro­vid­ing round-the-clock ser­vices for the State. The fre­quen­cy of for­eign vis­i­tors, Naipaul added, al­so had put a strain on the unit's re­sources. He said: "When we talk about pro­vid­ing for them it is not to pick them up from the air­port and take them where they are go­ing.

"We have to stay un­til end and en­sure they leave T&T's shore in­ci­dent-free. That's one as­pect of it. "Then there are all the dif­fer­ent ac­tiv­i­ties in the coun­try, in­clud­ing re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties and they have an im­pact on the road­way. "Even on the week­ends there is a high lev­el of traf­fic," Naipaul added.

Say­ing he sup­port­ed Gov­ern­ment's move to build a high­way from Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do, Naipaul de­scribed it as "ide­al." He said the ca­pac­i­ty of the roads al­so was not de­signed to ac­com­mo­date the in­creas­ing num­ber of cars.

Glam­our, no com­mit­ment

He said of­fi­cers trained to ride mo­tor­bikes were not in­ter­est­ed in brav­ing the hot sun or the rain. They were in­stead in­ter­est­ed in the "glam­our" of learn­ing to ride a mo­tor­bike for their own pur­pos­es, he added. Thir­ty-five of­fi­cers were trained last Christ­mas but de­clined to be ros­tered for mo­tor­bike du­ty, he said.

Naipaul added: "Peo­ple, for the glam­our of rid­ing a mo­tor­bike, at­tend­ed the cours­es. When they are test­ed and suc­ceed they are giv­en a per­mit. "But when told af­ter that they would be re­quired to work with­out su­per­vi­sion and they would have to brace all the el­e­ments, hot sun and rain, they do not want to ride the bike again. That is where it fin­ish­es. They say, 'No, sir, I can't do that any­more,'" Naipaul said.

Po­lice of­fi­cers, he said, could not be man­dat­ed to be ros­tered for mo­tor­bike du­ty. "By that time they make some friend some­where and then they get trans­ferred," he added.

Grab for man­pow­er

An­oth­er chal­lenge, he said, was of­fi­cers from the unit be­ing grabbed by oth­er units with­out re­place­ments. He added: "There are fac­tors fac­ing us in the unit where, when we train peo­ple - es­corts, de­fen­sive dri­vers - when they fin­ish, oth­er de­part­ments ab­sorb them be­cause every de­part­ment in the Po­lice Ser­vice is in search of the best.

"The Po­lice Ser­vice does not on­ly have re­cal­ci­trants, we have some of the best work­ers." Adding that the ma­jor­i­ty of of­fi­cers from the Traf­fic Branch were ded­i­cat­ed, he said some worked long shifts, be­gin­ning at 3 am, with­out com­plaint. "Oth­er de­part­ments want peo­ple like that. So grad­u­al­ly they come here as though here is a bas­ket and they take and just go and it is not be­ing re­plen­ished," Naipaul said.

Change leg­is­la­tion to re­duce speed

Speed is the num­ber-one fac­tor lead­ing to road ac­ci­dents and deaths, he said. De­fen­sive dri­ving should be made manda­to­ry and the age for ve­hic­u­lar in­sur­ance should be in­creased, Naipaul added. "You get your li­cence at 17 and 18 but un­til 22 and 23 you can­not get in­sur­ance. So you dri­ve un­der su­per­vi­sion dur­ing that time," Naipaul said.

He said al­ter­ing the me­chan­ics of a car for drag-rac­ing al­so re­sult­ed in ac­ci­dents. Sta­tis­tics show a four per cent in­crease in road ac­ci­dents and a six per cent de­crease in road deaths for the year. Sta­tis­tics com­piled by the unit re­vealed that for 2012 to date, there have been 55 road ac­ci­dents and 64 fa­tal­i­ties. Of those who died, 61 were adults and three were mi­nors.

Plans in place, says Ewats­ki

There are plans to in­clude a traf­fic branch with­in each di­vi­sion of the Po­lice Ser­vice says Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions Jack Ewats­ki. Say­ing this was part of the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing mod­el, Ewats­ki said the move was aimed specif­i­cal­ly at en­sur­ing greater con­trol of re­sources.

The ini­tia­tive al­ready ex­ists in three di­vi­sions, West­ern, Cen­tral and To­ba­go, he said. "We are con­stant­ly look­ing at the re­sources we have. Some­times we have to move re­sources around," Ewats­ki added. He said the Na­tion­al Road Safe­ty Plan which was be­ing led by for­mer ACP Wayne Richards, was a work in progress but cer­tain el­e­ments al­ready were be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

Prop­er en­gi­neer­ing of roads al­so played a vi­tal part in re­duc­ing road ac­ci­dents, he said. Say­ing the in­fra­struc­ture of high­ways and roads need­ed to be ex­am­ined, Ewats­ki added: "There is a sci­ence in build­ing roads and en­sur­ing main­te­nance is kept up is vi­tal."

Part of the plan, Ewats­ki said, in­clud­ed ed­u­ca­tion and changes in be­hav­iour and lifestyle. He added: "The plan goes well be­yond what the po­lice need to do. It is a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach and ed­u­ca­tion is one of the key com­po­nents. "It is about en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to stop drink­ing and dri­ving, to stop their ag­gres­sive be­hav­iour on the roads and to stop tak­ing risks while on the roads."

On the is­sue of re­sources he said de­vices, like radar guns, would as­sist po­lice in mon­i­tor­ing speed.