Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan wants the pop­u­la­tion to know that the De­mer­it Points Sys­tem is un­der re­view.In fact, he says it has been un­der re­view every year since it was in­tro­duced in May 2020.

He said as a re­sult of this process, the min­istry amend­ed the mi­nor of­fences list and re­moved the de­duct­ing of points for de­fec­tive fit­tings or blown park or tail lights in 2022.

In the cur­rent re­view process, Sinanan said the min­istry is look­ing at an­oth­er ad­just­ment.

“We are look­ing at ex­tend­ing that time of sus­pend­ing a dri­ver and be­fore you reach to that point, you can go and do a course or you can go and do some re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion dri­ving ... there are sev­er­al things that we are look­ing at,” he ex­plained dur­ing the Tenth Road Safe­ty Awards cer­e­mo­ny at the min­istry’s Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters yes­ter­day.

As Sinanan re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of the sys­tem, he said over 37,000 peo­ple had been sus­pend­ed from dri­ving and were due to do re­me­di­al cours­es.

“That is why we are re­view­ing the sys­tem be­cause there are peo­ple who are dri­ving with over 300 points at­tached to their name, you could imag­ine how many vi­o­la­tions ... but to them is no big thing,” he said.

“Crime is not on­ly some­body who takes a gun and goes and kills some­body, we all have a part to play in crime. Al­most every crime com­mit­ted, a ve­hi­cle is used,” Sinanan added.

He said at the mo­ment, if the po­lice can­not find the of­fend­ers they can­not be pe­nalised, so they were al­so re­view­ing that method.

“Be­cause you can’t have peo­ple like that on the road with to­tal dis­re­gard,” he said.

Giv­ing an ex­am­ple of er­rant dri­ving, Sinanan said a 2020 sur­vey done be­tween Jan­u­ary and June 27 at the Wright­son Road traf­fic lights near the Hy­att Re­gency found 24,581 vi­o­la­tions.

“That is peo­ple break­ing that traf­fic light right out­side there. You could imag­ine what hap­pens around Trinidad?” he said.

An­oth­er sta­tis­tic re­vealed that from 2020 to 2023, 70,000 peo­ple were tick­et­ed for not wear­ing seat­belts.

Sinanan called on “lead­ers to be lead­ers” and for the pub­lic’s sup­port as they con­tin­ued to work on chang­ing the er­rant be­hav­iour of road users.

Sinanan al­so took Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to task for her com­ments re­cent­ly that if re-elect­ed, she would low­er traf­fic fines be­cause Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the sys­tem as a scheme for rev­enue col­lec­tion.

“A UNC gov­ern­ment will re­duce traf­fic fines across the board and im­ple­ment State-spon­sored dri­ver ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes in­stead,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said then.

Sinanan lam­bast­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her com­ments, es­pe­cial­ly for propos­ing that harsh fi­nan­cial penal­ties and sus­pen­sions on­ly be is­sued for dan­ger­ous dri­ving and dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of drugs or al­co­hol.

“So if you speed­ing and you kill some­body that’s okay. What non­sense is that?” he asked.

He said the sys­tem has noth­ing to do with mak­ing mon­ey or pe­nal­is­ing peo­ple but rather chang­ing the dri­ving cul­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I would be so hap­py if we could get up one day, have ze­ro road fa­tal­i­ties and no in­come from penal­ties,” he said.

Al­so speak­ing at the event, Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field called on the lead­ers to stop play­ing po­lit­i­cal games with peo­ple’s lives.

“From the taxi dri­vers to the lead­ers of the op­po­si­tion to man in the street, you are a leader ... let’s get a hold of our be­hav­iour on the roads,” she urged.

She said there was no way T&T could af­ford to see 211 road deaths like in 2009. At present, the Ar­rive Alive boss said the road fa­tal­i­ty sta­tis­tic for the year stood at 36.