Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field is urg­ing prop­er en­force­ment of the coun­try’s traf­fic laws as the Gov­ern­ment scraps the de­mer­it points sys­tem for the ma­jor­i­ty of traf­fic vi­o­la­tions.

On Thurs­day, Trans­port Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our said Gov­ern­ment in­tends to re­tain the penal­ties for six crim­i­nal dri­ving of­fences, in­clud­ing dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol or drugs.

Za­k­our ex­plained Gov­ern­ment had ap­proved amend­ments to the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act (48:50), Ninth Sched­ule (Or­der 2025).

Za­k­our ex­plained there are cur­rent­ly 99 vi­o­la­tions un­der the act—69 of which car­ry de­mer­it points; while 63 can be as­cribed to non-crim­i­nal vi­o­la­tions, and six for crim­i­nal of­fences.

The new or­der will re­move de­mer­it points from all but a few of­fences.

Once signed, the amend­ed sched­ule will delete de­mer­it points for all but three vi­o­la­tions—Items 6, 23, and 227—al­though Za­k­our did not spec­i­fy which of­fences these items rep­re­sent.

He con­firmed, how­ev­er, that the six crim­i­nal of­fences that cur­rent­ly car­ry de­mer­it points will re­main in force.

“These are dri­ving while dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or ob­tain­ing a dri­ving per­mit, dri­ving while un­der the in­flu­ence of drugs, dri­ving or be­ing in charge of a ve­hi­cle with a blood al­co­hol lev­el ex­ceed­ing the lim­it, fail­ure to pro­vide a spec­i­men of breath or blood, fail­ing to sub­mit to a breath analy­sis and care­less dri­ving,” said Za­k­our.

But re­spond­ing to ques­tions yes­ter­day, about the de­vel­op­ment, In­gle­field told Guardian Me­dia Ar­rive Alive had al­ready met with the min­is­ter and that, “He knows of our con­cerns.”

Call­ing on the rel­e­vant min­istries to en­sure that law­men had the tools need­ed to per­form their du­ties ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly, she went on that, “Be­ing the breathal­yser and speed guns be­cause ob­vi­ous­ly fines are still in place.”

In­gle­field in­sist­ed, “We need to have con­sis­tent en­force­ment of the laws along the na­tion’s roads.”

As for dri­vers who were pre­vi­ous­ly charged or pe­nalised based on ac­crued de­mer­it points, Za­k­our said the Gov­ern­ment is still de­lib­er­at­ing on how to deal with those cas­es.