The Port-of-Spain City Corporation receives on average one million dollars a month in revenue brought in from wrecking in Woodbrook alone.This was revealed by former Woodbrook councillor Cleveland Garcia.Garcia said 2011 to 2012 was the high water mark for wrecking in Woodbrook and the busiest night for the wrecker was Friday night, when patrons came after work to lime on Ariapita Avenue.
He said it was very easy on Saturdays to cross 200 vehicles wrecked, especially when there was a mega-concert or show in the area.Garcia said, however, he wasn't sure how aggressive wrecking was now in Woodbrook.The revenue figure from wrecking in Port-of-Spain is undisclosed. Transport Minister Stephen Cadiz said the figure could be substantial. New Port-of-Spain mayor Raymond Tim Kee said he was not privy to the sealed information from the former administration.
Tim Kee said he did not know the wreckers who are operating in downtown Port-of-Spain as they were not hired by the corporation. He said they had their own contracts with the Police Service.They are Alfredo's Wrecking Service, Guytan's Wrecking Service and Fyzam's Wrecking Service.Meanwhile, former Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing said he could not access corporation records to say how many vehicles were wrecked for the year or how much money was made from wrecking as he was no longer in office.
Lee Sing said he had nothing to do with recruiting wrecking crews but the time will come soon when much of downtown Port-of-Spain will be fully pedestrianised and have a paid parking system.He suggested traffic wardens, parking at the Salvatori building, as well as the park-and-ride system, as viable solutions to the perennial parking and wrecking problems for the city.
'Wrecking counterproductive'
Businessmen described the wrecker as a bane to business and said it was counterproductive to the Government's mandate to stimulate business activity in Port-of-Spain, as people are turned off with the system of wrecking in the city.Unfortunate motorists falling prey to the wrecker have to pay a fee of $500, in cash, as no credit cards or cheques are accepted. Of that figure, $200 goes to the State and $300 goes to the independent wrecker contractor.
Lee Sing said revenue collected from wrecking went towards the corporation's deposits, an account within the financial system, but he did not elaborate further.The wrecker also raised the ire of Port-of-Spain vendors last month when the police towed away a SUV that was parked on Charlotte Street, with an eight-year-old boy, Nathaniel Jack, screaming for help in the back seat.Tim Kee said, "I want to see how best to accommodate shoppers and merchants because it's a symbiotic relationship for business and goodwill.
"I had a meeting recently with Doma (the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association) to see what we can do to assist to promote commercial activity in the city and bring more people into Port-of-Spain."
Cadiz launches park and ride
Cadiz launched the park-and-ride service in Port-of-Spain, on November 6, for the Christmas season, to help reduce traffic congestion, parking and shoppers getting their vehicles wrecked.Cadiz said, "We've heard enough horror stories about the wrecker operating. With the park-and-ride service, we will be able to provide Christmas shoppers with a very good alternative for secured parking at a very reasonable price, which is a $20 parking fee for a day.
"It alleviates the congestion in Port-of-Spain, the issue of your car being ticketed for bad parking or the wrecker, which is fairly expensive."The other thing we want to do is get the population accustomed to the system of park and ride because Trinidadians love our cars, we love to be able to drive, we want to be able to park right in front the shop we go into. We're not a people who park and then walk a couple blocks, that's not in our nature."
Cadiz said the system enabled families to park on the outskirts of the city, be transported by buses that were efficient, clean and safe, do their transactions downtown, when they're done go back on board with a high level of comfort and very little inconvenience.He said the motorists didn't have to contend with going back to a car park where it was congested, unable to exit or worry about a break-in.
Cadiz said when there was a situation where parking was difficult, viable options must be provided and the Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) provided that role.He said if the park-and-ride service in the Queen's Park Savannah worked well over the Christmas season, one of the ideas under consideration was to institute the system throughout the year on a daily basis, expand the system to include the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Woodbrook to Port-of-Spain, San Fernando and Chaguanas.
Park-and-ride schedule
The service commenced onNovember 11 and will run to December 30. Citizens will be able to park their vehicles at the south car park of the Queen's Park Savannah, by the Grand Stand, pay $20 per vehicle for all-day parking and use a bus to shuttle to downtown Port-of-Spain, and return to the savannah when they are finished.The three PTSC buses will run at half-hour intervals from 7 am to 6 pm, initially from Monday to Friday and then extend to weekends in December.
The buses can be boarded at any time for users to return to their vehicle.
Indiscriminate wrecking ruining police reputation–Aboud
Doma president Gregory Aboud said the indiscriminate wrecking was not endearing the Police Service to the public.Aboud said, "We know that Ag Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mervyn Richardson and National Security Minister Gary Griffith are all trying their best to create an improved relationship between the police and the public."Unfortunately, the indiscriminate wrecking of motor vehicles is ruining the police reputation at this time.
"Based on public observation, it seems that the objective is not to enforce lawful parking, but to tow the cars of unknowing and unsuspecting drivers away."There are no signs at all in the city indicating where one can park and if there were signs which indicated that a particular area was a tow-away zone, no one would park there."He said when drivers got wrecked and go to the magistrate's court to complain they are told that the public was supposed to know the law and it was gazetted.
Aboud said in reality there was no gazette available for sale anywhere, no one knew where to source the information and suggested that Chief Justice Ivor Archie look into the matter.He said Doma received more than a dozen wrecking complaints a week from the public and also letters to the editor, describing abusive police, police telling drivers they were parked on the white line at a corner or police not asking first for car owners.
Two tales of wrecking woes
Derick Bhupsingh, a television cameraman, said the wrecker was currently one of most unjust scourges inflicted on the public by the police.With 30 years driving experience, Bhupsingh said he would not make the silly mistake of parking less than 30 feet from a corner, which he was written up for when he went to pick up his wrecked car at the Chaguanas Police Station earlier this year.
Bhupsingh said he was told he could fight it in court but it would be his word versus the police and the wrecker driver. In any case, he would not win and his vehicle would not be released to him until he paid the $500 fine.He said the wrecking incident inconvenienced him and having to walk to a bank, wait in line to withdraw money, and then wait in line at the police station to pay his fine was not productive.
Meanwhile, a retired businessman from Charlotte Street said he ran out of his store when he saw a wrecker reversing to hook up his vehicle which was parked outside. He said he stood in front of his vehicle.The businessman identified himself as the owner of the vehicle to the police officer working with the wrecking crew, but he said he was told to come up to the pavement.
As soon as he complied, the police officer ordered the wrecker to continue wrecking the vehicle and barked at the businessman that he wasn't supposed to park on the road.The businessman reported the incident to one of the early incarnations of the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) who did send an investigative team, but he said he was disappointed that the police officer was not disciplined and he did not receive a refund for being wrongfully wrecked.
He said the police should use their discretion when businessmen switched from vans to smaller cars to navigate though crowded streets to deliver goods, especially around Christmas."They see the car is full of goods and they still want to wreck you."He said businessmen also had to compete with audacious vendors who demanded that they remove their vehicles from the road so they can set up their stalls claiming the spot as "theirs."
The businessman said they wanted to park as close as possible to their business places when it got dark for security reasons and wondered why vendors' vans are never targeted by the wrecker.
Provisions forwrecking a vehicle
ASP Joanne Archie of the Police Service's communications unit, sent via e-mail the procedures outlined in the Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic Act for the police to follow during wrecking.
�2 Archie said before a vehicle was removed by the wrecker, the police officer must make inquiries in the immediate vicinity in an effort to locate the driver. If the driver was found, lay charges against him and request him to remove his vehicle.
�2 She said even when a vehicle had been hooked up or was in the process of being wrecked, and not moved from where it was parked, it can be released to the owner.
�2 When the owner of the vehicle identifies himself, the proper procedure for the police officer to follow is to release the vehicle to the driver, issue a ticket or prosecute the driver.
�2 The Road Traffic Act also stated that members of the Police Service were not liable for any damages incurred to vehicles in the course of wrecking.