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Friday, July 25, 2025

Most demerit points to be scrapped but criminal driving offences remain

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14 days ago
20250711
Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Eli Zakour and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar show the Cabinet-approved document to remove specific conditions from the demerit points system to members of the media at yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing.

Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation Eli Zakour and Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar show the Cabinet-approved document to remove specific conditions from the demerit points system to members of the media at yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing.

ROGER JACOB

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

De­mer­it points for the ma­jor­i­ty of traf­fic vi­o­la­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go will soon be scrapped, but penal­ties will re­main for six crim­i­nal dri­ving of­fences, in­clud­ing dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol or drugs.

Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our made the an­nounce­ment fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing, where Gov­ern­ment ap­proved amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act (48:50) Ninth Sched­ule (Or­der 2025).

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Red House, Za­k­our said there are cur­rent­ly 99 vi­o­la­tions un­der the Act, 69 of which car­ry de­mer­it points—63 for non-crim­i­nal vi­o­la­tions and six for crim­i­nal of­fences. The new or­der will re­move de­mer­it points from all but a few of­fences.

“I will be sign­ing the Or­der short­ly,” Za­k­our told re­porters.

Once signed, the amend­ed Sched­ule will delete de­mer­it points for all but three vi­o­la­tions—Items 6, 23, and 227—al­though Za­k­our did not spec­i­fy which of­fences these items rep­re­sent.

He con­firmed, how­ev­er, that the six crim­i­nal of­fences that cur­rent­ly car­ry de­mer­it points will re­main in force.

“These are dri­ving while dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or ob­tain­ing a dri­ving per­mit, dri­ving while un­der the in­flu­ence of drugs, dri­ving or be­ing in charge of a ve­hi­cle with a blood al­co­hol lev­el ex­ceed­ing the lim­it, fail­ure to pro­vide a spec­i­men of breath or blood, fail­ing to sub­mit to a breath analy­sis and care­less dri­ving,” said Za­k­our.

As for dri­vers who were pre­vi­ous­ly charged or pe­nalised based on ac­crued de­mer­it points, Za­k­our said the Gov­ern­ment is still de­lib­er­at­ing on how to deal with those cas­es.

In ad­di­tion, Za­k­our an­nounced up­com­ing changes to Reg­u­la­tion 27 of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Reg­u­la­tions to ex­pand the scope of the ve­hi­cle in­spec­tion frame­work.

He said the changes are ex­pect­ed to im­me­di­ate­ly re­duce the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion’s an­nu­al in­spec­tion load by near­ly 50,000 ve­hi­cles.

Cur­rent­ly, pri­vate ve­hi­cles over five years old must be in­spect­ed at au­tho­rised test­ing sta­tions, then re-in­spect­ed every two years there­after. Ve­hi­cles over three tonnes and com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles—in­clud­ing those with “THR” reg­is­tra­tions—must be in­spect­ed an­nu­al­ly at the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion’s Ca­roni com­pound.

The new amend­ments will al­low li­cenced ve­hi­cle test­ing sta­tions to in­spect pub­lic hire ve­hi­cles such as taxis, hired cars, and oth­ers li­censed for hire. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, VM­COTT ex­am­in­ers will be au­tho­rised to in­spect all taxis, re­gard­less of weight, and all goods ve­hi­cles over 3,200 kilo­grammes.

Za­k­our said dis­cus­sions are still on­go­ing re­gard­ing how to reg­u­late “PH” (pri­vate for hire) taxis un­der the new frame­work.


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