TREVOR SU­DAMA

To­day I wish to fo­cus on the long-suf­fer­ing mo­torists of T&T who must be among the most tol­er­ant of cit­i­zens giv­en their ca­pac­i­ty to en­dure puni­tive mea­sures by the Gov­ern­ment and prim­i­tive con­di­tions for mo­tor­ing. This coun­try has its fair share of in­dis­ci­plined dri­vers and reck­less speed­sters but I be­lieve the vast ma­jor­i­ty are law-abid­ing and re­spon­si­ble. How­ev­er, while they ex­hib­it frus­tra­tion, they are tak­en for grant­ed by the au­thor­i­ties.

When it comes to rais­ing tax­es or re­duc­ing sub­si­dies, the mo­torist is a vic­tim of first re­sort. The price of the ve­hi­cle he pur­chas­es in­cludes cus­toms du­ty, val­ue added tax, and mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax. Costs of parts for his ve­hi­cle and main­te­nance can run in­to thou­sands of dol­lars an­nu­al­ly giv­en the poor con­di­tions of most of our road­ways. Then there are in­spec­tion charges. On the sale of the ve­hi­cle to an­oth­er own­er, a trans­fer fee is levied. A Cer­ti­fied Copy of Own­er­ship at­tracts an­oth­er fee. For the is­sue of a dri­ver’s li­cence, a fee has to be paid as well as for its re­new­al.

The fu­el sub­sidy dur­ing this PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion has been re­duced three times which means fu­el prices at the pumps have ac­cord­ing­ly been in­creased plac­ing fur­ther bur­den on the hap­less mo­torist. On the last oc­ca­sion, the price of a litre of su­per gaso­line was raised by a whop­ping one dol­lar and the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance pro­claimed that mo­torists have not ri­ot­ed. He was cor­rect. They have not even en­gaged in peace­ful protest, let alone ri­ot.

When it comes to penal­ties for vi­o­lat­ing traf­fic reg­u­la­tions, the fi­nan­cial im­po­si­tions can be as­tro­nom­i­cal. Let me make it clear that I am all in sup­port of law en­force­ment and get­ting mo­torists to com­ply with the law. How­ev­er, if the heavy fines were meant as a de­ter­rent, then sta­tis­tics should be pro­vid­ed to sub­stan­ti­ate. If they do not serve as a de­ter­rent, then they are mere­ly rev­enue-rais­ing mea­sures. For ex­am­ple, it was re­port­ed that 38,000 speed­ing tick­ets were is­sued in 2018. If these were all gen­uine speed­ing cas­es, then it is ob­vi­ous that fines are not hav­ing the de­sired ef­fect. Last year alone mo­torists paid the not in­sub­stan­tial sum of $90 mil­lion in fines to the Gov­ern­ment.

On the is­sue of the caus­es or road ac­ci­dents, it is well known that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of ac­ci­dents are caused by speed­ing, dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence, faulty dri­ving, and the per­ilous road con­di­tions that mo­torists must nav­i­gate. Un­road­wor­thy ve­hi­cles are re­spon­si­ble for on­ly a lim­it­ed per­cent­age of ac­ci­dents. How­ev­er, the lat­est ex­cur­sion by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port has been the tar­get­ing of mo­torists dri­ving ve­hi­cles which have not been cer­ti­fied as road­wor­thy and not hav­ing a stick­er to dis­play. The fine for this vi­o­la­tion was the not in­con­sid­er­able sum of $5,000. Of course, it cre­at­ed a pan­ic among mo­torists much to the glee of of­fi­cials who had the pow­er to im­pose their au­thor­i­ty. It is a case of se­lec­tive law en­force­ment re­quir­ing the least ef­fort but with the great­est pos­si­ble re­turns to the Trea­sury.

How­ev­er, it turned out to be an­oth­er case of bungling in­com­pe­tence, un­pre­pared­ness, and gross in­ef­fi­cien­cy. In late Ju­ly last year, the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port an­nounced a five-month grace pe­ri­od to al­low ve­hi­cle own­ers to have their ve­hi­cles in­spect­ed and cer­ti­fied for road­wor­thi­ness. I am not sure if at that time the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty was aware of the num­ber of ve­hi­cles that still need­ed to be in­spect­ed. If it did, was it able to put mea­sures in place to meet the doc­u­men­ta­tion re­quired for all the ve­hi­cles in ques­tion? More so, giv­en the known propen­si­ty of Trinida­di­ans to leave things for the last minute, did the au­thor­i­ty plan for a late in­spec­tion rush? Ap­par­ent­ly not.

To­wards the end of De­cem­ber, there were long lines of ve­hi­cles out­side au­tho­rised garages with some mo­torists even sleep­ing in their ve­hi­cles in or­der to get an ad­vanced spot in the line which stretched for very long dis­tances. Garage own­ers al­so came un­der pres­sure hav­ing been forced to line up at Li­cens­ing Of­fices for hours in or­der to get in­spec­tion cer­tifi­cates and stick­ers. One ed­i­to­r­i­al com­ment­ed, “We could not have imag­ined that the Gov­ern­ment it­self, which was read­ing the ri­ot act to the pub­lic, was so dis­or­ga­nized as to be un­able to de­liv­er, even with ex­tend­ed time.”

Hav­ing to en­dure sub­stan­tial fi­nan­cial costs for the pur­chase and main­te­nance of his ve­hi­cle, in­creas­ing cost of fu­el, the con­tin­u­ous im­po­si­tion of fees by the Gov­ern­ment ar­bi­trar­i­ly and in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly in ad­di­tion to se­vere penal­ties for mi­nor vi­o­la­tions and threats and ha­rass­ment by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, what does the mo­torist get in re­turn? He gets poor­ly de­signed roads, de­te­ri­o­rat­ing sur­faces and verges with crater-like pot­holes and huge slip­pages, pe­ri­od­ic se­vere road­way flood­ing, a pauci­ty of road sig­nage, mark­ings and white lines, and very in­ad­e­quate street light­ing. How­ev­er, there is no in­di­ca­tion of dis­sat­is­fac­tion or dis­ap­proval. There is no or­gan­ised na­tion­al protest.