SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Wor­ried and frus­trat­ed af­ter be­ing slapped with a $19,000 tick­et for six traf­fic of­fences dur­ing a po­lice road­block on Sun­day night, a San Fer­nan­do co­conut ven­dor said he is now un­sure how he will pay the fines with­out “los­ing his liveli­hood.”

Ravi Ba­boolal, who sells at Li­brary Cor­ner, ex­plained that on Sun­day, around 8.30 pm, he was on his way to drop off co­conuts at his vend­ing stall when he en­coun­tered a po­lice road­block.

Ba­boolal said po­lice of­fi­cers chased him af­ter he did not im­me­di­ate­ly stop, and lat­er is­sued him a lengthy tick­et for the of­fences at the cor­ner of Keate and Mu­cu­rapo Streets.

The of­fences list­ed in­clude:

* Dri­ving a ve­hi­cle with­out a valid in­spec­tion stick­er or cer­tifi­cate — $2,000

* Fail­ing to com­ply with the di­rec­tive of a po­lice of­fi­cer — $1,500

* Us­ing a ve­hi­cle with­out a valid pol­i­cy of in­sur­ance — $10,000

* Per­mit­ting ex­cess smoke or vis­i­ble vapour to be emit­ted from a ve­hi­cle — $2,000

* Us­ing a ve­hi­cle with de­fec­tive tyres — $2,000

* Ve­hi­cle car­ry­ing an un­se­cured load — $1,500

Ba­boolal, who al­so turned 39 on Sun­day, ad­mit­ted that he had been pre­vi­ous­ly sus­pend­ed from dri­ving af­ter he was is­sued oth­er traf­fic of­fences. Al­though the sus­pen­sion pe­ri­od end­ed last No­vem­ber, he was not aware that he had to ap­ply to have his per­mit re­ac­ti­vat­ed.

While Ba­boolal con­ced­ed that some of the of­fences could have been avoid­ed, he said he in­tends to seek le­gal ad­vice about con­test­ing the in­sur­ance tick­et in court.

But for now, Ba­boolal’s ma­jor con­cern is find­ing the mon­ey to pay the $19,000 tick­et, which is due on or be­fore Feb­ru­ary 3.

He said a late fee of $250 per month would be added to each fine if he fails to meet the dead­line.

“How am I to pay this $19,000 in tick­ets? I do not make much mon­ey here, so I don’t know what I am go­ing to do this month. How am I go­ing to pay this?” Ba­boolal said. In ad­di­tion to pay­ing rent for his vend­ing stall, Ba­boolal said he al­so em­ploys three work­ers. He be­lieves he may have been tar­get­ed, not­ing that the same of­fi­cer had pre­vi­ous­ly tick­et­ed him.

With­out his ve­hi­cle, Ba­boolal said he would be forced to pur­chase co­conuts from whole­salers who sell from their vans, in­creas­ing his op­er­at­ing costs and pos­si­bly forc­ing him to raise prices by a dol­lar or two.

Lament­ing his frus­tra­tion, Ba­boolal said he had planned to take his van to an au­to garage to have it re­paired and then in­spect­ed. “I can’t even see the mon­ey to fix my ve­hi­cle be­cause it is tick­et, tick­et, tick­et. So, what am I work­ing for—to pay TTPS for tick­ets? This is un­fair in Trinidad.”

A le­gal no­tice, pub­lished on Christ­mas Day, amend­ed the Ninth Sched­ule of the Act, rais­ing penal­ties across dozens of of­fences, in­clud­ing speed­ing, dan­ger­ous dri­ving-re­lat­ed breach­es, doc­u­men­ta­tion of­fences, and oth­er road traf­fic vi­o­la­tions.

Un­der the amend­ments, fines pre­vi­ous­ly set at $1,000 have been in­creased to $2,000; $750 fines dou­bled to $1,500; $300 fines raised to $600; and $450 fines in­creased to $900.

Based on a re­view of the amend­ed sched­ule, nu­mer­ous in­di­vid­ual traf­fic of­fences now car­ry fines that are dou­ble their pre­vi­ous amounts, with sev­er­al oth­ers in­creased be­yond 100 per cent. The changes took ef­fect Jan­u­ary 1, this year.

Ba­boolal de­scribed the re­cent in­creas­es in traf­fic fines as ridicu­lous. He not­ed that many peo­ple have re­cent­ly lost their jobs. “I find that is un­fair to the pub­lic. How can you pay this when you’re un­em­ployed, so they’re look­ing to fill up the jail?”

Ba­boolal has ap­pealed for more time to pay the traf­fic of­fences.

“If they could have been a lit­tle le­nient and give me a cou­ple of months to pay, I could have paid it. But I cer­tain­ly can­not pay it in one month. That is to­tal­ly un­fair,” he said. He added that sell­ing his van may be his on­ly op­tion. “I might have to sell my ve­hi­cle, and that will be the end of my busi­ness. My ve­hi­cle is my liveli­hood. With­out my van, I can’t bring the co­conut here. I can’t take away the co­conut shells.”

‘Con­form to the law’

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment, Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke said any­one is­sued a fixed penal­ty can ex­er­cise their right to con­test it.

“The com­mis­sion­er can­not ba­si­cal­ly cir­cum­vent any tick­et is­sued by my of­fi­cer, by a po­lice of­fi­cer, by a traf­fic war­den, etc. Some­one has the right to con­test that tick­et and face a mag­is­trate. “

He ex­plained that once con­test­ed, penal­ties on the tick­ets be­come null and void un­til that mat­ter is ad­ju­di­cat­ed on by a mag­is­trate.

The Com­mis­sion­er said he was not in a po­si­tion to say whether it is fair or un­just.

“Again, our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to car­ry out the law as it is and to treat with where we see the of­fence take place.”

He could not say whether any­one re­ceived penal­ties amount­ing to sim­i­lar sums or high­er than Ba­boolal, as he said his fo­cus has been on try­ing “to en­sure that we see few­er tick­ets is­sued.”

Clarke ad­vised own­ers to en­sure their ve­hi­cles are in­spect­ed, their in­sur­ance is valid, and that they con­form with the re­quire­ments of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle An­nu­al Traf­fic Act.

Not­ing that last year’s sta­tis­tics for fail­ing to wear seat belts and us­ing the phone while dri­ving are high, he said peo­ple need to con­form to the law.

“Once you con­form to the law, you don’t need to wor­ry as to what those tick­ets are,” he said.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly said she would con­sid­er re­duc­ing the penal­ties if mo­torists obey the laws and there’s a de­cline in road traf­fic deaths.

Mean­while, Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field said dri­vers who can­not com­ply with road traf­fic safe­ty rules and laws ought to con­sid­er al­ter­na­tive op­tions.

“From the de­scrip­tion of these traf­fic of­fences, I think the dri­ver and oc­cu­pants of his ve­hi­cle are lucky to be alive. If our ve­hi­cles are not safe; if we have de­fec­tive tyres; if we have no in­sur­ance and there­fore not pro­tect­ed...in the event of a crash, our­selves and oth­ers, per­haps we should be tak­ing pub­lic trans­port, rather than putting lives at risk.”

Co­or­di­na­tor TTPS Strate­gic Road Safe­ty Project Sgt Brent Bat­son, re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that the TTPS’s role and func­tion is law en­force­ment, which in­cludes en­sur­ing mo­torists’ com­pli­ance with road traf­fic reg­u­la­tions. Not­ing that the State has tak­en a clear stance that unin­sured mo­tor ve­hi­cles on the pub­lic roads will not be tol­er­at­ed, he said any dri­ver op­er­at­ing an unin­sured ve­hi­cle on the pub­lic roads with this new lev­el of fines is mak­ing a choice to take a chance, which places both them­selves and oth­er road users at risk. He again ap­pealed to the mo­tor­ing pub­lic to en­sure com­pli­ance with ve­hi­cle and dri­ving reg­u­la­tions.

And Econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon said that many peo­ple may not be fi­nan­cial­ly sound to pay the fines. “For many per­sons like that (co­conut ven­dor) in so­ci­ety, it is very dif­fi­cult, ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult, if not im­pos­si­ble for them to find that kind of mon­ey im­me­di­ate­ly or even with­in a few weeks.” While he ap­pre­ci­ates the need for law and or­der, Ramkissoon said there ought to be a bal­ance.

“It should not be this size­able sum that can have a very neg­a­tive im­pact on those of the low­er end of the eco­nom­ic lad­der, I think that has to be recog­nised.”