Chester Sam­bra­no

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pledged to re­duce road traf­fic fines lat­er this year if road deaths and oth­er se­ri­ous road of­fences de­cline.

On Thurs­day (Jan­u­ary 1), amend­ments to the Ninth Sched­ule of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act took ef­fect. It meant in­creas­es in a ma­jor­i­ty of traf­fic of­fences, most of them by 100 per cent.

How­ev­er, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there could be a re­prieve in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture if mo­torists re­duce er­rant be­hav­iour on the roads.

“If by the end of the first half of 2026 there is a de­crease in road deaths, reck­less and drunk dri­ving of­fences, I would be will­ing to re­duce traf­fic fines to low­er than what it was pre­vi­ous­ly. The ball is in the pub­lic’s court; their be­hav­iour will de­ter­mine the fu­ture changes,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

Among the no­table in­creas­es was ex­ceed­ing the speed lim­it, where a mo­torist can now be is­sued a $4,500 fixed penal­ty no­tice when found to be over a road­way’s spec­i­fied speed lim­it by 31 kilo­me­tres per hour or more. Fail­ing to have a cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance for a ve­hi­cle, con­trary to Sec­tion 3 of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle In­sur­ance (Third Par­ty) Risks Act Chap­ter 48:51, can now lead to a mo­torist re­ceiv­ing a $10,000 fixed penal­ty no­tice by law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

Any in­di­vid­ual ar­rest­ed for DUI of­fences will now be sub­ject to in­creased fines, with dri­vers fac­ing a fine of up to $24,000 for a first-time of­fence of ex­ceed­ing the breath al­co­hol lim­it and up to $45,000 for a sec­ond of­fence.

In a me­dia state­ment on New Year’s Day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice ap­pealed to mo­torists to com­ply with all road traf­fic laws, em­pha­sis­ing that ad­her­ence to the High­way Code can help them avoid sig­nif­i­cant fines and penal­ties.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, there had been a nine per cent de­crease in road traf­fic deaths in 2025, with 109 fa­tal­i­ties com­pared to 124 in 2024.

Warn­er backs fines but wants equal en­force­ment

Mean­while, for­mer min­is­ter of works and trans­port Dr Jack Warn­er has praised the Gov­ern­ment’s 100 per cent in­crease in traf­fic fines but cau­tioned that road safe­ty ef­forts must al­so ad­dress pedes­tri­an be­hav­iour and the road­wor­thi­ness of gov­ern­ment ve­hi­cles.

In a let­ter to Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Eli Za­k­our yes­ter­day, Warn­er raised con­cerns about the grow­ing prob­lem of jay­walk­ing and dis­tract­ed walk­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly among peo­ple us­ing mo­bile phones. He said this be­hav­iour, of­ten in­volv­ing pedes­tri­ans ig­nor­ing traf­fic lights and pedes­tri­an cross­ings, putting both pedes­tri­ans and mo­torists at risk.

Warn­er called for pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and en­force­ment mea­sures that go be­yond dri­vers, warn­ing that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for safe roads should not rest sole­ly on mo­torists.

The for­mer min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged the bold­ness of Za­k­our’s de­ci­sion to dou­ble fines, say­ing the an­nounce­ment on Christ­mas night might have sur­prised many.

“Road car­nage has be­come far too fa­mil­iar. Do­ing noth­ing was not an op­tion,” he wrote, adding that stronger penal­ties were a nec­es­sary tool to curb law­less­ness on the roads, re­duce fa­tal­i­ties, and con­tribute to pub­lic rev­enue.

Draw­ing on his ex­pe­ri­ence as an el­der­ly dri­ver, Warn­er said he had ob­served in­creas­ing dis­re­gard for road rules and asked for clar­i­ty on whether gov­ern­ment ve­hi­cles meet the same safe­ty and road­wor­thi­ness stan­dards now be­ing ap­plied to pri­vate mo­torists. He specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned ve­hi­cles used by min­istries, NP tankers, T&TEC, WASA, TSTT, the Fire Ser­vice, the Po­lice Ser­vice, the Prison Ser­vice, the De­fence Force, PTSC bus­es, and oth­er state-owned con­veyances.

“Have these ve­hi­cles been in­spect­ed? Will they be in­spect­ed un­der the same stan­dards now be­ing strict­ly en­forced on pri­vate cit­i­zens? If the an­swer is yes, it would be use­ful for the pub­lic to know this, and the like­ly cost to the tax­pay­er, and the time­line for such in­spec­tions, full trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. If the an­swer is no, and I sin­cere­ly hope that will not be the case, then the in­evitable ques­tion must be asked, ‘Why not?” he said.

Warn­er said the let­ter was meant to strength­en Za­k­our’s ini­tia­tive, not un­der­mine it. He said pub­lic con­fi­dence in en­force­ment de­pends on the per­cep­tion that rules ap­ply equal­ly to all, cit­i­zens and gov­ern­ment alike, and that en­force­ment must be com­pre­hen­sive, fair, and cred­i­ble, sup­port­ed by func­tion­ing sys­tems and vis­i­ble ac­count­abil­i­ty.

He added that Za­k­our had shown courage in con­fronting in­dis­ci­pline on the roads and said with clear fol­low-through and con­sis­tent ap­pli­ca­tion, the ini­tia­tive could mark a turn­ing point to­ward safer roads and re­stored pub­lic trust. Warn­er thanked Za­k­our for his at­ten­tion and wished him for­ti­tude in the de­mand­ing task ahead.

Based on pre­lim­i­nary da­ta from the TTPS, there were 418 traf­fic of­fences de­tect­ed since the new fines took ef­fect. How­ev­er, a break­down of the tick­ets is­sued was not avail­able up to late yes­ter­day.

Beck­les: It’s dic­ta­to­r­i­al and op­pres­sive

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lat­est com­ments on traf­fic fines once again ex­pose a prime min­is­ter and a gov­ern­ment with no plan, no vi­sion, and no co­her­ent pol­i­cy. 

In a re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia on the Prime Min­is­ter’s promise to re­duce fines for good be­hav­iour on the road­ways, Beck­les said, “Im­pos­ing 100 per cent in­creas­es and then dan­gling the pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­lief if cit­i­zens ‘be­have’ is not a road safe­ty strat­e­gy. It is dic­ta­to­r­i­al and op­pres­sive gov­er­nance. Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure is be­ing shift­ed on­to the pub­lic, while she and her team ab­di­cate their du­ty to plan, ed­u­cate, con­sult, and lead.”

She said, “This ap­proach is en­tire­ly con­sis­tent with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s long-stand­ing pat­tern of bul­ly­ing, threat­en­ing, and men­ac­ing ‘big-stick’ be­hav­iour. The coun­try re­mem­bers her re­cent threat to “cuff down” MP Colm Im­bert, her re­marks about “bussing the heads” of her own min­is­ters, and her lan­guage about “killing them vi­o­lent­ly” when ref­er­enc­ing sus­pect­ed nar­co-traf­fick­ers at sea.”

She said this was not strength; that it is des­per­a­tion, delu­sion and in­tim­i­da­tion.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said equal­ly pre­dictable is what she called the PM’s breach of pre-elec­tion promis­es. 

“Trinidad and To­ba­go was promised con­sul­ta­tion. There has been none. We were promised no new tax­es and eco­nom­ic ease for cit­i­zens, yet the cost of liv­ing con­tin­ues to rise and pres­sure mounts on or­di­nary peo­ple. This Gov­ern­ment gov­erns by de­cree from a fal­la­cious throne, not by di­a­logue, and it gov­erns by pun­ish­ment, not pol­i­cy,” she said.

Beck­les said cit­i­zens de­serve lead­er­ship that is sound, sane, thought­ful, con­sul­ta­tive, and hu­mane, not threats, bro­ken promis­es, and op­pres­sive rule.

“What she needs to do is free the peo­ple from her op­pres­sion, ac­cept that nei­ther she nor her Cab­i­net has the brain­pow­er and the grav­i­tas for the job, and al­low the peo­ple to elect a new and com­pe­tent gov­ern­ment.”