Gail Alexan­der

Over 15,000 mo­torists each year since 2013 have been caught on cam­era com­mit­ting traf­fic vi­o­la­tions at the traf­fic light near the Hy­att, Port-of-Spain, Works Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan said yes­ter­day.Speak­ing on amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Act, Ram­bachan said the cam­era, which tracks vi­o­la­tions, caught 16,055 dri­vers in 2013 and 21,310 vi­o­la­tions in 2014. Ram­bachan said up to Jan­u­ary 2015, some 1,736 vi­o­la­tions were al­so caught on cam­era at that one traf­fic light.

"It shows the kind of peo­ple we have be­come re­gard­ing vi­o­la­tions," Ram­bachan added.He said the amount of mon­ey which could have been ob­tained in fines from such vi­o­la­tions was $21 mil­lion.Ram­bachan said fig­ures for per­sons charged for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol were 706 in 2012, the same num­ber in 2013 and 731 in 2014.He said 59 per cent of vi­o­la­tions in 2014 were in the south and south­west re­gion and sev­en per cent were in Cen­tral. "It's the tip of the ice­berg," he added.

Ram­bachan said sta­tis­tics showed there were 786,297 ve­hi­cles reg­is­tered in T&T.He called for a probe of sit­u­a­tions where non-Eng­lish speak­ing ap­pli­cants were get­ting dri­vers' li­cences even though the writ­ten reg­u­la­tions test was in Eng­lish. He said tests could be the sub­ject of ma­nip­u­la­tion. He said he had come across peo­ple dri­ving in Ch­agua­nas, un­able to speak Eng­lish, and mak­ing mis­takes on the roads.

He said T&T was par­ty to a 1949 UN con­ven­tion al­low­ing peo­ple from oth­er coun­tries who had a valid dri­ving li­cence to present that to au­thor­i­ties with­in 90 days and on­ly take a dri­ving test. He said the con­ven­tion might have to be re­vis­it­ed.Say­ing be­hav­iour in T&T had to change for ac­ci­dents to de­crease, he added a ve­hi­cle was a weapon in the hand of a per­son and in­creas­ing ir­ra­tional be­hav­iour was be­ing seen on the roads.

Ram­bachan said three weeks ago his ve­hi­cle and an­oth­er, while re­turn­ing from his con­stituen­cy, were tailed by a group of mo­tor­cy­clists who kept cut­ting in and out of his ve­hi­cle's path. He said one rid­er rode along­side his ve­hi­cle and made the sign of fir­ing a gun at him with his fin­ger. Ram­bachan said he post­ed the num­ber of the cy­clist on Face­book.Ram­bachan said the bill called for new dri­vers to be ac­com­pa­nied for a pe­ri­od by peo­ple who have had a dri­vers' li­cence for at least five years.

"We must pro­tect peo­ple against them­selves. There are many sto­ries of youths who just got their li­cence who died in ac­ci­dents. The bill is cor­rect in plac­ing re­stric­tions on new dri­vers," he said.

Cours­es for new dri­vers

The bill al­so calls for new dri­vers to be en­rolled in dri­vers' ed­u­ca­tion cours­es. He said things changed in a coun­try and high­ways were built and even ex­pe­ri­enced dri­vers need­ed de­fen­sive dri­ving cours­es.He said dri­vers over age 65 would al­so have to sat­is­fy phys­i­cal fit­ness needs con­cern­ing vi­sion, hear­ing and bod­i­ly and men­tal fit­ness.If they were re­fused a li­cence, he added, they could seek a dri­ving test. Peo­ple over 65 will al­so have to get a med­ical cer­tifi­cate in re­new­ing li­cences every two years.

Ram­bachan said a doc­tor who is­sued a med­ical cer­tifi­cate with­out ex­am­in­ing the per­son would be com­mit­ting an of­fence, car­ry­ing a $10,000 fine and one-year jail sen­tence.While not cast­ing as­per­sions, he said there were too many cas­es of scant ex­am­i­na­tions. He said peo­ple with med­ical con­di­tions must in­form their doc­tors of that.

Dri­ving schools/in­struc­tors will be reg­u­lat­ed un­der the act, as will as car rental busi­ness­es which will have to be reg­is­tered. Car traders will al­so be reg­u­lat­ed.Ram­bachan said there were many cas­es of peo­ple who paid down for cars and could not get them af­ter that. A $5,000 fine or jail is pro­posed for dri­vers who don't car­ry their li­cence.

El Pecos probe

Works Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan said yes­ter­day he hoped the ex­plo­sion ac­ci­dent at El Pecos, Mar­aval, would be thor­ough­ly probed to see who was cul­pa­ble.He said fill­ing gas took place dai­ly in places and in­spec­tions of premis­es and ve­hi­cles in which gas was trans­port­ed should al­ways be done.Ram­bachan said the min­istry had al­so re­moved Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route pass­es from sev­er­al dri­vers fol­low­ing com­plaints and probes of "fleec­ing" of pas­sen­gers, par­tic­u­lar­ly stu­dents.