Geisha Kow­lessar

For this year 37 peo­ple were killed in road traf­fic ac­ci­dents com­pared to 27 for the same pe­ri­od last year, rep­re­sent­ing an in­crease of 37 per cent.

And the lead­ing caus­es have been speed­ing and drunk dri­ving.

So said act­ing Supt Mathu­ra Singh, of the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch, while speak­ing at yes­ter­day's week­ly press brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tive Build­ing, Port-of-Spain.

He said dri­vers who failed to com­ply with the laws have al­so lost their lives on the na­tion's roads.

Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Singh added, had been iden­ti­fied as the area with the most deaths thus far, tal­ly­ing 12 for the year to date.

"That di­vi­sion­al com­man­der, to­geth­er with the Traf­fic Branch, have stepped up pa­trols and our dili­gence in this area," Singh said.

On Tues­day Ger­ald La Touche, hus­band of Diego Mar­tin Coun­cil­lor, Gail La Touche, died on im­pact on the Diego Mar­tin High­way.

Asked the fac­tors for the in­crease in road deaths Singh said the Po­lice Ser­vice was still analysing its da­ta which showed there was an in­crease in road deaths on the mi­nor roads as op­posed to the ma­jor ones, like the high­ways.

He said, how­ev­er, there had been a re­duc­tion in pedes­tri­an deaths due to a height­ened cam­paign un­der­tak­en by the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Singh said for 2016, 561 dri­vers have been ar­rest­ed and charged for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence.

Al­so 8,321 traf­fic tick­ets have been is­sued to er­rant dri­vers for the year, av­er­ag­ing over 100 tick­ets be­ing is­sued dai­ly.

Send­ing a stern mes­sage to dri­vers bent on break­ing the law over the East­er week­end Singh said: "We will be en­gag­ing in height­ened pa­trols and en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ties across the coun­try util­is­ing all of our re­sources.

"For those dri­vers who may think they will be drink­ing and dri­ving be fore­warned that the DUI Task Force will be out in full force con­duct­ing breath tests at pop­u­lar lo­ca­tions in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to Ari­api­ta Av­enue, Mara­cas Beach, Cau­ra Riv­er, Ch­aguara­mas, To­co and in To­ba­go," Singh said.

On the is­sue of the long await­ed speed guns Singh said while the law was al­ready in place, min­is­te­r­i­al ap­proval was yet to be grant­ed.

"On our last check we were hop­ing to get it be­fore the East­er week­end but un­for­tu­nate­ly this did not ma­te­ri­alise," Singh added.

Chal­lenges

The Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Au­thor­i­ty (MVA) which was sup­posed to be ful­ly op­er­a­tional in Sep­tem­ber 2014, has been iden­ti­fied by Singh as a ma­jor chal­lenge fac­ing the Traf­fic Branch.

The MVA, with a price tag of $750 mil­lion, was ex­pect­ed to re­place the ex­ist­ing Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion.

"The MVA is im­por­tant to us to get the road traf­fic sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol. I know the min­istry is deal­ing with it but we need it like yes­ter­day," Singh said.