Trinidad and Tobago got its most serious wake-up call about the new penalties for drunk driving on Friday, when Carl Pirmal was sentenced to jail for two years with hard labour for failing to submit to a breathalyser test. Consider that for a moment. All of the cases brought before the courts since the introduction of the blood-alcohol content test have resulted in fines, but Pirmal earned the wrath of the court by refusing, with abusive words, to submit to a third testing of his blood alcohol content on Carnival Tuesday, after his vehicle crashed into another one. Despite clear warnings from Deputy Police Commissioner Gilbert Reyes, who served as the Gold Commander of Carnival's security initiatives, 11 people were arrested and charged by police over the Carnival weekend with driving under the influence of alcohol.
If there's one thing that a party-happy public should take away from Carl Pirmal's sentencing, it is that there is a new regime of road safety in effect in 2010, and at its core is the very clear understanding that not only is drunk driving a matter of zero tolerance for police officers, efforts to avoid and neuter the effectiveness of the breathalyser regime is also. Let there be no mistake, the business of road safety is a critical one. This country has a well-earned reputation for poor vehicular etiquette and deaths, as a result of automobile accidents having been on a steady rise since the year 2000, when 135 deaths were recorded on the nation's roads. Fatalities due to auto accidents peaked in 2008 at 262, and there was a small drop in the number of deaths to 213, the lowest toll since 2004.
There is no doubt that driving with impaired judgment contributes to this disturbingly high number of road-related deaths, and the introduction of the breathalyser is the first step toward enforcing a culture of accountability among drivers. The Police Service must continue to audit the processes being utilised in applying the breathalyser, and listen closely to the officers assigned to breathalyser duty, to ensure that the process is fair, clearly explained, and kept free from the temptations of bribery and other moral suasions to bypass the procedure. The breathalyser is only one of the hi-tech monitoring devices being considered to effect real reductions in our disturbingly high number of auto-related deaths.
Arrive Alive, the pro-safety advocacy group, has vigorously championed the use of the radar-based speed measurement gun, particularly on highways which are black spots for road fatalities related to speeding. In a 2002 report, the Central Statistical Office noted that 35 per cent of all fatal road accidents took place on the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, Solomon Hochoy Highway and Eastern Main Road. Also on the agenda are amendments to the seat belt law, particularly in the way the safety restraint is used in securing small children. These changes will not be easy for citizens accustomed to a deadly level of laissez faire on the nation's roadways, but 200-plus deaths per year for the first decade of this century cannot be considered acceptable.
New regulations and monitoring capabilities instituted by the Government and enforced by the police must be matched by a renewed effort at culture change and citizen education about their responsibilities and behaviour on the road. People are dying on the streets because their peers encourage bad driving habits and the prevailing social environment endorses poor choices on the road.
Drivers charged with relatively minor traffic offences should be required to upgrade their driving skills and understanding of the requirements of safe, defensive driving. Punitive measures applied to extreme traffic offences have their place, but it's time that our strategy for improving this country's traffic fatality statistics acknowledge that education and understanding of each driver's role in respecting the fundamentals of road safety will be critical to effecting real reductions in the annual tally of road deaths.