KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The pro­longed clo­sure of bars and the in­tro­duc­tion of the UTurn Sys­tem are just a few rea­sons why T&T record­ed 96 road deaths in 2020, the low­est tal­ly in 63 years.

Co­or­di­na­tor of the Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Road Safe­ty Project Brent Bat­son told Guardian Me­dia that while there was a com­mend­able change in mo­torists’ be­hav­iour in 2020, they are look­ing for­ward fur­ther en­force­ment tech­nol­o­gy in 2020.

It in­cludes the roll­out of the spot speed cam­eras, which are fixed in­stal­la­tions to de­tect ve­hi­cles dri­ving over the speed lim­it and red light en­force­ment cam­era for those traf­fic light break­ers.

Bat­son ex­plained that the top caus­es of road ac­ci­dents were dri­ving over the speed lim­it, dri­ving too fast for spe­cif­ic road con­di­tions, dri­vers un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol, dri­ving while dis­tract­ed and in some fa­tal cas­es, not wear­ing seat­belts.

With bars closed for sev­er­al months, he said peo­ple did not have too many op­por­tu­ni­ties to dri­ve home af­ter con­sum­ing too much al­co­hol. How­ev­er, in 2020, po­lice have seen more ad­her­ence to the law.

“The col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the TTPS, traf­fic war­dens, mu­nic­i­pal po­lice and Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty link­ing to the U-Turn Sys­tem was able to raise the lev­el of en­force­ment. It was ef­fec­tive mov­ing away from the pa­per-based sys­tem as it al­lowed en­forcers to eas­i­ly dis­pense tick­ets to dri­vers on the road,” Bat­son said.

How­ev­er, he was dis­ap­point­ed that some peo­ple con­tin­ued speed­ing, not­ing that the po­lice gave out ap­prox­i­mate­ly $250,000 in tick­ets for traf­fic vi­o­la­tions over the Christ­mas Day/Box­ing Day week­end. He re­mind­ed mo­torists that the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty would dis­qual­i­fy their dri­ver’s per­mit af­ter ac­cu­mu­lat­ing 10 de­mer­it points.

He said it could take just two po­lice stops for a per­son to ac­crue 10 points. Once a dri­ver gets de­mer­it points, he or she must spend the next two years with­out oth­er traf­fic of­fences be­fore the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty re­sets their record. 

“The State is try­ing to show dri­vers that there is a greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing a dri­ver’s per­mit. It is not a right.”

Ar­rive Alive pres­i­dent Sharon In­gle­field is hap­py with the de­crease in road fa­tal­i­ties in 2020 and is hop­ing for an­oth­er 20 per cent re­duc­tion at the end of 2020. In­gle­field said the TTPS is yet to re­lease the sta­tis­tics on traf­fic of­fences in 2020. 

Last week, Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke re­vealed that be­tween June 2020 to De­cem­ber 22, 2020, the State would dis­qual­i­fy 1,000 dri­ver’s per­mits and banned 60 mo­torists from sit­ting be­hind the wheel of a ve­hi­cle. 

“From what I am gath­er­ing from the 1,000 dri­vers who will have their per­mits sus­pend­ed, the aware­ness of this, with re­gards to the con­se­quences of mak­ing poor choic­es and giv­ing dri­vers de­mer­it points has caused the de­crease. I am al­so cer­tain that less traf­fic on the road has al­so helped as well as the road safe­ty in­fra­struc­ture like bar­ri­ers and round­about,” In­gle­field said.

She be­lieves COVID-19 pro­to­cols that led to peo­ple work­ing from home and the re­strict­ed move­ment in the ear­li­er part of 2020 led to few­er ve­hi­cles on the roads, lead­ing to few­er ac­ci­dents.

How­ev­er, Bat­son said there was no sig­nif­i­cant drop to road ac­ci­dents dur­ing that time com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

In 2021, In­gle­field hopes the State will im­ple­ment spot speed cam­eras, in­stall more bar­ri­ers along the high­ways and con­sis­tent en­force­ment of road traf­fic laws us­ing tech­nol­o­gy.