Shas­tri Boodan

J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in To­ba­go end­ed on a high note yes­ter­day morn­ing with on­ly a few in­ci­dents re­port­ed.

The rev­el­ry start­ed short­ly af­ter 4 am with 22 bands sched­uled to cross the Stage in the Sea and many parad­ing from Shaw Park along the Claude Noel High­way and then in­to Scar­bor­ough. The largest band was the Fog An­gels pre­sen­ta­tion, Turn it Up.

Head of po­lice op­er­a­tions in To­ba­go ACP Col­lis Hazel said one per­son was ar­rest­ed for DUI (dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence) and two were held on out­stand­ing war­rants.

Hazel said 106 of­fi­cers from Trinidad were de­ployed to To­ba­go for the fes­tiv­i­ties but there still were not enough of­fi­cers to deal with the large num­ber of events tak­ing place on the is­land at the same time.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice said in a re­lease that a spe­cial traf­fic en­force­ment unit had been es­tab­lished to deal with To­ba­go’s 600 per cent year-on-year in­crease in road fa­tal­i­ties this year.

Of­fi­cers from the unit were de­ployed last Tues­day and by Fri­day morn­ing they had is­sued more than 148 tick­ets for var­i­ous traf­fic vi­o­la­tions. The most tick­et­ed of­fence was the fail­ure to wear seat­belts.

On Fri­day eight mo­torists ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Anslem Le­an­der–sev­en were charged for drunk dri­ving and one for dri­ving with­out a per­mit.

A busi­ness­man and a heavy goods truck dri­ver, who were both fac­ing their sec­ond drunk dri­ving charge, were fined $19,000 and $14,000 re­spec­tive­ly.

Mag­is­trate Le­an­der im­posed a to­tal of $54,400 in fines for drunk dri­ving and dri­ving with­out a per­mit.

Po­lice Strate­gic Road Safe­ty Project Co­or­di­na­tor Sgt Brent Bat­son, who is part of the en­force­ment team in To­ba­go, ap­pealed to road users to ex­er­cise cau­tion and com­ply with road traf­fic reg­u­la­tions.

“We aim to re­duce the risk of in­jury and harm to the pub­lic in gen­er­al and en­sur­ing safe, re­spon­si­ble road use is a key part of that strat­e­gy,” he said. “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have al­ready re­ceived some neg­a­tive views about our road polic­ing ef­forts, but we are ap­peal­ing to every­one par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2023 To­ba­go Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties to obey the law when it comes to dri­ving on the roads and en­sure they have a sober dri­ver be­hind the wheel of the mo­tor ve­hi­cle.”

Bat­son added, “To those who view our ef­forts as pure­ly re­pres­sive, I ask you to at­tempt to change your per­spec­tive to that of pre­ven­tive. We want every­one to en­joy the To­ba­go Car­ni­val, but it can’t be at the ex­pense of en­dan­ger­ing life and limb.”