Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Ar­rive Alive di­rec­tor Kirk Wait­he says cit­i­zens should hold the Gov­ern­ment, the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and every par­lia­men­tar­i­an re­spon­si­ble for the con­tin­u­ing car­nage on the na­tion's road­ways. Wait­he was com­ment­ing on the Gov­ern­ment's pro­posed $2,000 fine for fail­ing to use a car seat for chil­dren un­der the age of five. He said the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and Road Traf­fic (Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions) 2010 Bill, which was cir­cu­lat­ed this week in the Sen­ate, was promised by Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert since last year. "Every­thing that was men­tioned in the (me­dia) re­ports I have read was promised be­fore," he said. "In our meet­ing with Min­is­ter Im­bert on Au­gust 26, 2009, he promised to have all this im­ple­ment­ed by De­cem­ber 31, 2009. In­creased fines, amend­ments to the seat belt law, the radar gun were all sup­posed to hap­pen by (the end of) 2009."

Wait­he, re­fer­ring to the last road fa­tal­i­ty in Trinci­ty, said: "In our meet­ing with Min­is­ter Im­bert, we al­so rec­om­mend­ed that road bar­ri­ers be placed at al­most the ex­act lo­ca­tion where last Sat­ur­day's (last week) road fa­tal­i­ty oc­curred. "It is not rock­et sci­ence...many of these things could have been done if the pro­tec­tion and preser­va­tion of Trin­bag­on­ian lives was their (the Gov­ern­ment's) first pri­or­i­ty," he said. "Min­is­ter Im­bert and the rul­ing par­ty, as well as the rest of Par­lia­ment, have to bear the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for every one of the lives lost so sense­less­ly on our na­tions' roads." The bill seeks to ban a dri­ver from hav­ing a child un­der the age of five in the front seat.

Ac­cord­ing to the bill, a child un­der six months shall be re­strained in a prop­er­ly fas­tened and ad­just­ed rear­ward-fac­ing child re­straint. A child six months to four years must oc­cu­py a rear­ward-fac­ing or for­ward-fac­ing re­straint that has a built-in har­ness or an ap­proved boost­er seat that is prop­er­ly po­si­tioned and fas­tened. While he ap­pre­ci­ates the aim of the bill, Wait­he said Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesh­e­ria, in her 2010 bud­get speech, as­sured these ini­tia­tives would be in place by the end of 2009. "We need to get it done with tremen­dous ur­gency," he said. "We are 23 road fa­tal­i­ties too late...had Min­is­ter Im­bert kept his word and en­sured im­ple­men­ta­tion of all that was promised, it is rea­son­able to sug­gest that many of the lives lost so far this year–and there are many– could have been saved."