Carisa Lee

Po­lice have found and ques­tioned a woman seen smok­ing a cig­a­rette at a gas sta­tion in a video post­ed to so­cial me­dia last month.

This was the word from Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Road Safe­ty Co­or­di­na­tor Sergeant Brent Bas­ton, who said a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort be­tween var­i­ous agen­cies had al­lowed them to quick­ly iden­ti­fy both peo­ple in the video.

“Due to the tech­nol­o­gy that was de­ployed with the U-turn sys­tem, the TTPS, to­geth­er with Li­cens­ing, were able to quick­ly iden­ti­fy both the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle, as well as the per­son that com­mit­ted the of­fence,” he said.

Bat­son was speak­ing at a cer­e­mo­ny to hand out Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route pass­es to maxi taxi dri­vers at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port on Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port’s web­site, the UTurn soft­ware pro­vides re­al-time con­nec­tiv­i­ty among the Ju­di­cia­ry, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, TTPost and the new Traf­fic Man­age­ment Cen­tre.

Bat­son said the woman’s ac­tion was a clear of­fence of Reg­u­la­tion 39 of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act, which says, “Any per­son who fills petrol in­to any re­cep­ta­cle on or ad­ja­cent to any mo­tor ve­hi­cle or in­to the tank of a mo­tor ve­hi­cle while the en­gine is run­ning, or while any light, oth­er than an elec­tric light, is a light on the ve­hi­cle, and any per­son who smokes or lights a match or ex­pos­es a naked light in close prox­im­i­ty while petrol is be­ing so filled is guilty of an of­fence.”

“It was kind of shock­ing to see some­body ac­tu­al­ly en­gag­ing in such a dan­ger­ous act,” Bat­son said.

How­ev­er, the co­or­di­na­tor said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has gone in an­oth­er di­rec­tion and he could not com­ment fur­ther. How­ev­er, he en­cour­aged peo­ple to re­port or record such of­fences in fu­ture when they see it.

“Let us know so that we can do our part as well,” he said.

The video of the woman smok­ing at the ser­vice sta­tion sparked out­rage by many on so­cial me­dia.

Af­ter the video sur­faced, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that smok­ing is strict­ly pro­hib­it­ed at ser­vice sta­tions as it pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant risk, as a lit cig­a­rette or loose cig­a­rette ash can ig­nite gaso­line vapours in the air.

NP al­so said mo­bile phones are not de­signed or cer­ti­fied for use in po­ten­tial­ly ex­plo­sive at­mos­pheres, which ex­ist tem­porar­i­ly around the pump and noz­zle dur­ing re­fu­elling.

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