The state has raked in over $30 million in fines this from two road traffic violation categories, and if you thought speeding offences were the most ticketed violation, then you’re wrong.
With this year’s road fatality tally already surpassing 2021’s figure, Road Safety Coordinator for the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, Brent Batson, yesterday said police have had to clamp down on motorists who failed to buckle up more times than any other road traffic breaches.
Speaking with Guardian Media, Batson said over 20,000 tickets have been issued for those failing to wear seat belts.
“For this year, we’ve had the number 1 most ticketed offence being the lack of seat belt use. In fact, over 24,000 tickets were issued to motorists for failing to wear seatbelts, that includes child seats as well.”
According to Batson, data obtained from the use of the new digital traffic ticketing u-turn system also placed a figure to the alarming finding that many were turning a blind eye to the lifesaving mechanism.
He said, “At a thousand dollars per ticket, you’re talking about over 24 million dollars in fines, that’s really unacceptable and cannot continue.”
Batson lamented that it was this failure to wear seat belts that had also contributed to the country’s high road fatality rate.
“We see it in the crashes where we see people ejected from the vehicles. What disturbs us the most is that we thought we were past that because seat belt use, you know, we thought was an understood win win for everybody, it’s your priority form of protection.”
The TTPS Road Safety Coordinator confirmed the increase of 20 per cent in road fatalities, with 90 deaths recorded for the year so far.
“2022 is not finished as yet, we have recorded 90 road traffic deaths compared to 75 for the same period last year. We anticipated somewhat of an increase because as we know, all the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, traffic went back to its highest levels because what we’ve seen was a lot of people, coming out of the COVID period, there was an increase in vehicular traffic with regard to vehicle ownership.”
Batson also added that speeding tickets issued doubled to over 8,000 when compared to 2020. However, the authorities aren’t daunted in their efforts to reduce the figures.
“We have our Corporate Communication Officer, Ms Archie, they’ve developed, based on the data, a campaign called Sit, Click, Drive that we are going to be rolling out in the first quarter and we know that if persons just follow those three steps ... the problem is people sit and then drive and then they try to click and it’s too late.”
Meanwhile, Superintendent Ranjan Rampersad, who is attached to the Traffic and Highway Patrol Branch, pleaded with the public to exercise extreme caution on the roadway, especially over the next few days.
