Loyse Vin­cent

Mo­torists in To­ba­go have been warned to prac­tice road safe­ty mea­sures or face the con­se­quences.

This as from ear­ly next year, mo­torists can ex­pect to see road traf­fic of­fi­cials us­ing dig­i­tal tick­et­ing sys­tems, red light and spot speed cam­eras to po­lice the road­way.

Those who vi­o­late traf­fic reg­u­la­tions will re­ceive traf­fic vi­o­la­tions no­tices and ac­com­pa­ny­ing fines by mail.

These are just some of the changes com­ing un­der the Min­istry of Works’ new “U-Turn sys­tem.”

It is a dig­i­tal­ly sup­port­ed in­te­grat­ed man­age­ment sys­tem op­er­at­ed through the Gov­ern­ment’s Traf­fic En­force­ment Cen­tre.

Of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port vis­it­ed To­ba­go to pro­mote the new sys­te­myes­ter­day at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Cen­tral Ad­min­is­tra­tive Ser­vices, Scar­bor­ough.

Di­rec­tor of Le­gal Ser­vices at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Mar­vin Gon­za­les gave an overview of the new sys­tem that said po­lice of­fi­cers will use dig­i­tal hand­held de­vices.

“The de­vices will al­low re­al-time con­nec­tiv­i­ty be­tween the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Ju­di­cia­ry and TTPost,” he said.

He said the sys­tem gives re­al-time in­for­ma­tion on out­stand­ing fines and war­rants.

The U-Turn Sys­tem will al­so in­tro­duce a de­mer­its points reg­is­ter, al­low­ing points to be record­ed against the dri­ver’s per­mit of the per­son who vi­o­late the road rules.

“New­ly li­censed dri­vers, who have ac­cu­mu­lat­ed sev­en or more de­mer­it points with­in one year of the date of is­sue, will have their per­mit sus­pend­ed,” he said.

For ex­pe­ri­enced dri­vers or any­one who has been the hold­er of a dri­ver’s per­mit for over one year, an ac­cu­mu­la­tion of 20 or more de­mer­it points car­ries a two-year sus­pen­sion.

Four­teen or more, but less than 20, car­ries a one-year sus­pen­sion and 10 or more but less than 14 de­mer­it points, earns the dri­ver a six-month sus­pen­sion, he said.

The records will be delet­ed af­ter two years. Per­sons who wish to con­test tick­ets can do so on­line.

How­ev­er, if per­sons do not pay fines and failed to no­ti­fy the court of their in­ten­tion to con­test a tick­et with­in a stip­u­lat­ed time, an ad­di­tion­al charge of 25 per cent will be added to the fine. Fail­ure to pay with­in an­oth­er thir­ty days will in­cur an ad­di­tion­al 50 per cent fine.

He said if the fines are not paid per­pe­tra­tors’ dri­ver’s per­mits would be sus­pend­ed un­til it is paid.

Ac­cord­ing to Gon­za­les, de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of road traf­fic of­fences gives the Li­cens­ing De­part­ment ad­min­is­tra­tive pow­ers to ex­tract pay­ment from of­fend­ing dri­vers. He said this al­so frees up the le­gal sys­tem to deal with oth­er crim­i­nal of­fences.

There is no fixed date for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of these mea­sures but per­sons can vis­it the min­istry’s web­site, www.mowt.gov.tt for a list of the vi­o­la­tions or of­fens­es, as­signed fines and de­mer­it points.