The Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is warn­ing lo­cal mo­torists and road users that they will pay a penal­ty for breach­ing ex­ist­ing road traf­fic reg­u­la­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the TTPS on the mat­ter, the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch has re­ceived re­ports of dri­vers at­tempt­ing to breach one-way traf­fic and il­le­gal­ly us­ing the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

The TTPS is ad­vis­ing mo­torists that the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the COVID -19 pan­dem­ic and Pub­lic Health re­stric­tions in no way nul­li­fy any en­force­ment of any of the Dri­ving Safe­ty Reg­u­la­tions un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act Chap­ter 48:50. 

In ad­di­tion, the Po­lice Ser­vice is ask­ing mo­torists to be mind­ful that the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty has a planned mora­to­ri­um on dri­ving with an ex­pired dri­ver’s per­mit un­til Au­gust 31st 2020.  How­ev­er, it em­pha­sis­es that there are no waivers on the re­quire­ments: 

* To have the dri­vers’ per­mit ready for pre­sen­ta­tion to Po­lice Of­fi­cers as stat­ed in Sec­tion 56(1) of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle Road Traf­fic Act Chap­ter 48:50.

* To have a valid Cer­tifi­cate of In­sur­ance for the ve­hi­cle as re­quired un­der Sec­tion 3(1) of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles In­sur­ance (Third Par­ty Risk) Act Chap­ter 48:51.

The TTPS says po­lice of­fi­cers will be con­tin­u­ing their traf­fic en­force­ment op­er­a­tions to keep the pub­lic safe, in­clud­ing road checks to ver­i­fy per­sons are le­git­i­mate­ly en­gag­ing in “es­sen­tial” ac­tiv­i­ties, as spec­i­fied un­der the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions 2020. It says that will in­clude checks on the num­ber of pas­sen­gers in Pub­lic Ser­vice ve­hi­cles.

The TTPS al­so is re­mind­ing cit­i­zens that any breach of these reg­u­la­tions car­ries a fine of $50,000 and im­pris­on­ment for up to six months.