Gail Alexan­der

Tick­et penal­ties and court fines for speed­ing, unau­tho­rised use of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus route, heav­i­ly tint­ed ve­hi­cles and oth­er traf­fic of­fences will be in­creased from the cur­rent $100-range to thou­sands of dol­lars un­der pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert out­lined the stiff new penal­ties and court fines yes­ter­day in pi­lot­ing amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Law. The pro­pos­als were part of the 2010 Bud­get mea­sures. Tick­et penal­ties and court fines for the var­i­ous traf­fic of­fices range from $1,000 to $8,000

Im­bert said the bill–via its steeply in­creased penal­ties in sev­er­al ar­eas–seeks to im­ple­ment de­ter­rents to of­fences. He said it al­so would an­swer the calls made to var­i­ous Gov­ern­ments to tight­en up and im­prove mo­tor ve­hi­cle and road traf­fic laws to deal with reck­less dri­ving and the car­nage on T&T's roads. "The sys­tems have fall­en in­to dis­re­pute since cur­rent fines–some of which are in force since 1991–are so minis­cule," Im­bert added, not­ing that peo­ple gen­er­al­ly ig­nore pay­ing the small fines. Con­se­quent­ly, cur­rent low fines take a toll on po­lice and ju­di­cial of­fi­cers who have to see them through the sys­tems.

Im­bert said he was seek­ing ideas from the Op­po­si­tion on a par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tro­ver­sial part of the bill. This would pre­vent PH dri­vers from us­ing their ve­hi­cles for taxi work or oth­er ve­hi­cles from op­er­at­ing for pur­pos­es for which the ve­hi­cle was not reg­is­tered, he said. Im­bert said while he un­der­stood the need for PH cars, pas­sen­gers in such ve­hi­cles and per­sons who were in­volved in ac­ci­dents with such cars could not ac­cess in­sur­ance cov­er­age. Un­der the bill, dri­vers' per­mits would be made valid for five years–in­stead of three as cur­rent­ly ob­tains–and the price would be $500 in­stead of $300. Im­bert said those 65 years and over, like Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er–whom Im­bert said was "about 70 years"–would have to have a test. The bill vests in the Works Min­is­ter the pow­er to au­tho­rise the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion rat­ing on cer­tain state-op­er­at­ed ve­hi­cles, such as the Coat of Arms. Im­bert not­ed there had been con­tro­ver­sy on the is­sue. The bill al­so al­lows po­lice and li­cens­ing of­fi­cers to ad­min­is­ter breathal­yser tests and would en­sure park­ing for MPs at­tend­ing Par­lia­ment along Knox Street to Aber­crom­by Streets, Port-of-Spain. Im­bert said park­ing fines, for in­stance, would clear con­ges­tion in Port-of-Spain where he said wreck­er op­er­a­tors do not like to work since it was too con­gest­ed. Im­bert said he per­son­al­ly did not like us­ing seat­belts but that mech­a­nism, he said, had been proven to save lives. Fur­ther amend­ments would be made to the leg­is­la­tion this year, he added.

?Speak­er blanks Tim on church de­bate.

UNC MP Tim Gopeesingh was un­suc­cess­ful in ob­tain­ing Par­lia­ment de­bate on the church be­ing con­struct­ed on state lands at Gua­napo. Gopeesingh raised the is­sue as a mat­ter of ur­gent na­tion­al im­por­tance for de­bate at the ad­journ­ment of yes­ter­day's Par­lia­ment ses­sion. He said the mat­ter was sig­nif­i­cant since the church was be­ing built with mil­lions of dol­lars of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey and was be­ing erect­ed on state land un­pub­li­cised. He said the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment failed to in­form the coun­try of the project and its le­gal­i­ty. House Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan said the mo­tion did not qual­i­fy un­der the Stand­ing Or­der which Gopeesingh raised it un­der.

?The fines

?�2 Tick­ets for unau­tho­rised use of Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in­creased from $200 to $2,000 and court fine – if chal­lenged – in­creased from $500 to $4,000;

�2 $3,000 fine for dan­ger­ous dri­ving;

�2 speed­ing tick­et penal­ty up from $200 to $1,000 and court fine from $500 to $4,000;

�2 $4,000 fine on first con­vic­tion for no seat­belts; $8,000 fine on sub­se­quent con­vic­tion;

�2 fines al­so for front-seat pas­sen­gers (from age 17 up­wards) who do not wear seat­belts;

�2 fixed tick­et penal­ty of $2,000 for ex­ces­sive­ly dark-tint­ed ve­hi­cles ob­scur­ing sight of a ve­hi­cle's in­te­ri­or. $5,000 court fine if chal­lenged;

�2 $2,000 fine for fail­ing to have a child un­der six months in a re­straint while in a car;

�2 chil­dren age five years and up­wards must be in a ve­hi­cle's back­seat;

�2 park­ing fines up from $500 to $4,000;

�2 fine for fail­ing to com­ply with po­lice of­fi­cer's in­struc­tion from $300 to $ 2,000 on first con­vic­tion; and,

�2 $1,000 charge for maxi taxis op­er­at­ing on unau­tho­rised routes.