Trinidad drivers have paid $171 million in traffic fines in 4 years

(Trinidad Guardian) The Ju­di­cia­ry of T&T has col­lect­ed $170.9 mil­lion in fines paid by er­rant and delin­quent dri­vers who com­mit­ted traf­fic of­fences and vi­o­la­tions be­tween 2011 and 2015 on the na­tion’s roads.

This star­tling fig­ure does not in­clude the 120,489 tick­ets that re­mained un­paid in the courts for this same pe­ri­od, which cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents mil­lions of dol­lars in out­stand­ing rev­enue for the State.

The amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and Road Traf­fic Act of 2017, which are ex­pect­ed to be pro­claimed next month, would see the in­tro­duc­tion of new road laws and mea­sures that will see the Gov­ern­ment mash­ing the brakes on reck­less, care­less and delin­quent dri­vers.

The im­ple­men­ta­tion in­cludes the use of speed spot cam­eras, penal­ties for late pay­ment of tick­ets, red light cam­eras and law en­force­ment of­fi­cers us­ing hand­held de­vices to is­sue elec­tron­ic tick­ets. In ad­di­tion, tick­ets will no longer be paid at the courts and mo­torists can have their dri­ver’s per­mits sus­pend­ed.

On Tues­day, Head of Le­gal Ser­vices at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Mar­vin Gon­za­les de­scribed these new mea­sures as the u-turn sys­tem of evo­lu­tion­ary en­force­ment for the 700,000-plus mo­torists who use the na­tion’s roads.

Fines to be paid at TTPost

Sta­tis­tics from the Ju­di­cia­ry showed the to­tal rev­enue col­lect­ed on traf­fic of­fences and vi­o­la­tions in the courts for the five-year pe­ri­od stood at $170,922,332. The num­ber of tick­ets paid stood at 172,769 com­pared to the 289,140 tick­ets that were hand­ed out by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

At the end of the 2017/2018 law term, the Ju­di­cia­ry stat­ed that the to­tal num­ber of new cas­es filed in the courts were 165,154, of which 102,875 were traf­fic cas­es.

The cur­rent sys­tem re­quires mo­torists to pay their tick­et fines in the court.

In many cas­es, a tick­et­ed dri­ver would have to go to a mag­is­trate’s court in the dis­trict where the tick­et was is­sued to pay the fine, which is frus­trat­ing and time-con­sum­ing.

An­oth­er rea­son that pre­vents dri­vers from pay­ing, Gon­za­les said, are the ex­ist­ing prob­lems in the Ju­di­cia­ry.

“The sys­tem in the Ju­di­cia­ry has not been im­proved over the years. It re­mains ar­cha­ic…it does not al­low for the con­ve­nience of pay­ing fines. So the cas­es go in­to a cy­cle of ad­journ­ments be­fore it is even­tu­al­ly dis­charged or dis­posed of by a mag­is­trate,” he said.

“While this is hap­pen­ing, you have new files as a re­sult of new tick­ets on a dai­ly ba­sis. Our fo­cus is the num­ber of un­paid tick­ets. If this is al­lowed to con­tin­ue with the in­tro­duc­tion of au­to­mat­ed en­force­ment it would cause some se­ri­ous dis­tress to the Ju­di­cia­ry in T&T.”

Apart from Gov­ern­ment los­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in un­paid tick­ets, Gon­za­les said the cur­rent sys­tem was a waste of the court’s re­sources and law en­force­ment’s time. Un­der the pro­posed fixed penal­ty tick­et­ing sys­tem, Gon­za­les said start­ing next month, dri­vers would be re­quired to pay their fines at TTPost out­lets and on its on­line plat­form, which would bring about ma­jor im­prove­ments and faster ser­vice in this new pay­ment sys­tem.

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er can sus­pend a dri­ver’s per­mit

The Gov­ern­ment has al­so in­tro­duced es­ca­lat­ed fees for of­fend­ers who refuse to pay their tick­ets with­in 30 days.

“If the fixed penal­ty is for a fine of $1,000 and the 30 days have elapsed, the fine will es­ca­late by 25 per cent,” Gon­za­les said.

The of­fend­er would have to pay $1,250 in 15 days. If the tick­et still re­mains un­paid, Gon­za­les said, the fine would in­crease by an ad­di­tion­al 25 per cent in 15 days, tak­ing the fee to $1,500.

If fines are not paid, the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er would have the pow­er to sus­pend the vi­o­la­tor’s li­cence.

“So what we have done is to re­move the ju­ris­dic­tion of the court for un­paid tick­ets and have those mat­ters dealt with on an ad­min­is­tra­tive ba­sis at the lev­el of the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er, so the courts will not be over­whelmed by per­sons sim­ply just not want­i­ng to pay their tick­ets,” Gon­za­les said.

Ac­tion will on­ly be tak­en by the court if a dri­ver files in 15 days a “no­tice to con­test,” there­by re­quest­ing a court hear­ing in­to their mat­ter. These are the on­ly mat­ters that will be heard in the courts.

96,000 dri­vers speed, run red lights an­nu­al­ly

Da­ta from the TTPS showed that from 2010 to 2017, there were 1,314 road fa­tal­i­ties while 1,130 traf­fic ac­ci­dents were record­ed. Fig­ures re­vealed that 55 per cent of ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents were caused by speed­ing, fol­lowed by al­co­hol con­sump­tion with 30 per cent. No seat belts and run­ning a red light were list­ed at sev­en and five per cent re­spec­tive­ly.

To help re­duce the num­ber of deaths on the na­tion’s roads, mea­sures will be im­ple­ment­ed us­ing the red light and speed spot­light cam­eras through­out the coun­try.

Sta­tis­tics re­vealed that on an an­nu­al ba­sis, 96,000 dri­vers break the law by speed­ing and dri­ving through a red light.

Ex­am­in­ing the fig­ures, Gon­za­les said in each cat­e­go­ry—speed­ing and break­ing a red light—there were 4,000 vi­o­la­tions a month. These vi­o­la­tions were de­tect­ed at Wright­son Road, El So­cor­ro and Trinci­ty where cam­eras were in­stalled but have not been op­er­a­tional.

In the com­ing weeks, these cam­eras will be­gin to cap­ture im­ages of dri­vers who do not com­ply with traf­fic laws.

Ci­ta­tion no­tices via mail ser­vice

Be­fore year’s end, 15 ad­di­tion­al speed spot cam­eras will be in­stalled at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions to mon­i­tor delin­quent dri­vers.

These cam­eras will be hooked up to the re­cent­ly formed Traf­fic En­force­ment Cen­tre (TEC) at Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion, Ca­roni, which will be manned by a team of 22 work­ers to pick out dri­vers who breach the law.

Once a vi­o­la­tion has been com­mit­ted a ci­ta­tion no­tice will be hand-de­liv­ered to the own­er of the ve­hi­cle by a TTPost work­er at his/her ad­dress. If the own­er can­not be found, the no­tice will be re­turned to TEC and their name will be pub­lished in the news­pa­per.

An­oth­er crit­i­cal com­po­nent of the leg­is­la­tion is the De­mer­it Point Sys­tem (DPS), which gives dri­vers penal­ty points for traf­fic vi­o­la­tions and of­fences com­mit­ted which could re­sult in their dri­vers’ per­mits be­ing sus­pend­ed.

• A dri­ver who ac­quired his li­cence 12 months or less can have his/her dri­ver’s per­mit sus­pend­ed for one year if sev­en points are at­tained in a year’s time.
• A dri­ver who has been in pos­ses­sion of his/her li­cence more than 12 months will face a six-month with­draw­al of a per­mit if he/she ac­quires more than ten but less than 14 points.
• Should the points ex­ceed 14 but are less than 20, the sus­pen­sion moves to one year, while a two-year sus­pen­sion will go in­to ef­fect if more than 20 points are ac­cu­mu­lat­ed.
• Fail­ure to pro­duce a ve­hi­cle for in­spec­tion can earn a dri­ver nine points.

Be­fore a per­mit is re-is­sued to the of­fend­ing dri­ver, Gon­za­les said they must par­tic­i­pate in a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­gramme and have their dri­ving reg­u­la­tions re­done. How­ev­er, he said a court can per­ma­nent­ly dis­qual­i­fy some­one from dri­ving based on the num­ber of of­fences com­mit­ted over a pe­ri­od of time. The points are ex­punged if the dri­ver’s record re­mains clean for two years.

“What this leg­is­la­tion has done is to make it a con­di­tion for a per­son to obey all the pro­vi­sions of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and Road Traf­fic Act in or­der to hold their dri­ver’s per­mit,” he said.

Min­is­ter can height­en sys­tem for Car­ni­val, East­er

Dur­ing height­ened sea­sons such as Car­ni­val, Christ­mas and East­er, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan has the pow­er to dou­ble the de­mer­it points on some vi­o­la­tions, such as dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence, break­ing a red light and speed­ing over the stip­u­lat­ed 100 and 65 kilo­me­tres per hour for light and heavy dri­vers.

The act states dri­vers who ex­ceed the speed lim­it by one to nine km per hour will have to pay $1,000.

Ex­ceed­ing the speed lim­it by ten to 20 km per hour, 21 to 30 and 31 km or more will see vi­o­la­tors be­ing fined $1,500, $2000 and $3,000 re­spec­tive­ly.

“This will make dri­vers ex­er­cise ex­treme cau­tion on the roads dur­ing those pe­ri­ods. So, the faster you dri­ve the more you will pay in fines which will at­tract more de­mer­it points,” Gon­za­les said.

Gon­za­les said the DPS will en­sure that the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion is em­pow­ered with em­pir­i­cal da­ta to de­ter­mine the suit­abil­i­ty of dri­vers. “This is not a sys­tem of pe­nal­is­ing peo­ple but en­sur­ing the safe­ty of our roads and to track the be­hav­iour of dri­vers. The more points you have on your record it in­di­cates the type of dri­ver you are.”

New li­cence plates, hand­held de­vices com­ing

Mean­while, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi is ex­pect­ed to in­tro­duce an­oth­er piece of leg­is­la­tion soon to im­ple­ment a new li­cence plate sys­tem that will car­ry a ra­dio fre­quen­cy iden­ti­fi­ca­tion fea­ture for tag­ging of ve­hi­cles for ef­fec­tive traf­fic man­age­ment and to as­sist law en­force­ment of­fi­cers in ef­fi­cient in­ves­ti­ga­tion of crimes, as well as the il­le­gal man­u­fac­ture of li­cence plates.

The com­ing on stream of 300 hand­held de­vices sup­plied by the min­istry will be used by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers. The de­vices will be con­nect­ed to the courts, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion.

“A law en­force­ment of­fi­cer can scan the bar code on a dri­ver’s per­mit and all their in­for­ma­tion will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly come up. This would in­clude any out­stand­ing war­rant/s a dri­ver may have. It will al­so re­veal if a mo­torist’s li­cense has been sus­pend­ed,” Gon­za­les said.

“The in­ten­tion of this de­vice is to move away from the tick­et books and pa­per-based sys­tem to a ful­ly dig­i­tal sys­tem…elec­tron­ic tick­et­ing. I am con­fi­dent when these pieces of leg­is­la­tion are op­er­a­tionalised next month we would recog­nise the im­pli­ca­tions and con­se­quences of dri­ving and breach­ing the laws.”

Poly­graph tests for TEC work­ers

In the next six weeks, the Traf­fic En­force­ment Cen­tre (TEC) will al­so be op­er­a­tionalised.

The man sit­ting in the dri­ver’s seat of this or­gan­i­sa­tion, which was ap­proved by Cab­i­net, is co­or­di­na­tor Adri­an Win­ter.

TEC will be work­ing with a staff of 22, com­pris­ing red light pro­cess­ing an­a­lysts, DPS an­a­lysts, fixed penal­ty/ci­ta­tion an­a­lysts and spot speed an­a­lysts, who will work close­ly with the Ju­di­cia­ry, TTPS and TTPost in en­forc­ing the new laws.

Win­ter said each an­a­lyst went through in­tense train­ing, ques­tion­ing and ex­am­i­na­tions.

“They were al­so sub­ject to poly­graph tests to main­tain the in­tegri­ty and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of the sys­tem. The staff at the cen­tre will have ac­cess to con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion…that is the dri­ving record of every per­son in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which has to be pro­tect­ed at all costs,” Win­ter said.

In the line of du­ty, the work­ers will face spo­radic poly­graph tests as well, Win­ter said.

The role of the an­a­lysts is to mon­i­tor their com­put­er screens, which will be hooked up to the min­istry’s spot speed and red light cam­eras, that will cap­ture im­ages of dri­vers who ei­ther break a red light, ex­ceed the speed lim­it or dri­ve in a reck­less or dan­ger­ous man­ner.

Once a dri­ver com­mits an in­frac­tion, they will be is­sued with a ci­ta­tion no­tice to pay a fine with­in a stip­u­lat­ed time.

The De­mer­it Point Sys­tem

• Dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of a drug—9 points.
• Dri­ving or be­ing in charge of a ve­hi­cle while blood al­co­hol lev­els ex­ceeds the pre­scribed lim­it—9 points.
• Care­less or dan­ger­ous dri­ving—6 points
• Dri­ving on the bus route with an unau­tho­rised ve­hi­cle—a $2,000 fine and 6 points.
• Dri­vng while dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or ob­tain­ing a dri­ving per­mit—14 points
• Dri­ving a ve­hi­cle with a child in the front seat who is five years and un­der—4 points
• Fail­ing to place a child who is five years and un­der in a child re­straint or boost­er seat while dri­ving—4 points.
• Mo­tor rac­ing and speed tri­als be­tween mo­tor ve­hi­cles with­out per­mis­sion—6 points.