Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice ar­rest­ed 709 peo­ple for dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of­fences in 2025, mark­ing the high­est num­ber of DUI-re­lat­ed ar­rests record­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go since 2019.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures from the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, 662 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for ex­ceed­ing the pre­scribed breath al­co­hol lim­it, while 47 were ar­rest­ed for fail­ing to sup­ply a breath spec­i­men for analy­sis.

The da­ta showed a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease from 2024, when 587 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed for DUI of­fences. The 2025 fig­ure rep­re­sents an in­crease of 122 ar­rests year-on-year.

The sta­tis­tics al­so showed that DUI ar­rests had de­clined steadi­ly be­tween 2019 and 2022 be­fore ris­ing again over the last three years.

In 2019, po­lice record­ed 832 DUI-re­lat­ed ar­rests, the high­est fig­ure in the eight-year pe­ri­od cov­ered by the da­ta. Ar­rests then fell to 457 in 2020 and 415 in 2021 dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od. By 2022, the to­tal dropped fur­ther to 347 be­fore climb­ing to 599 in 2023, 587 in 2024 and 709 in 2025.

Be­tween 2018 and 2025, po­lice ar­rest­ed a to­tal of 4,653 peo­ple for DUI of­fences. Of that fig­ure, 4,311 were for ex­ceed­ing the pre­scribed breath al­co­hol lim­it, while 342 peo­ple failed to pro­vide breath spec­i­mens.

The South­ern Di­vi­sion record­ed the high­est num­ber of DUI ar­rests in 2025, with 299 cas­es. This in­clud­ed 279 peo­ple ar­rest­ed for ex­ceed­ing the le­gal al­co­hol lim­it and 20 for fail­ing to pro­vide a breath spec­i­men.

The Cen­tral Di­vi­sion record­ed the sec­ond-high­est num­ber with 246 ar­rests, fol­lowed by Port-of-Spain with 37 and North Cen­tral with 35.

East­ern and North East­ern di­vi­sions each record­ed 27 ar­rests, while the North­ern Di­vi­sion record­ed 20.

The South West­ern Di­vi­sion record­ed 12 ar­rests, the West­ern Di­vi­sion record­ed four, and To­ba­go record­ed the low­est num­ber with two ar­rests.

Po­lice sta­tis­tics showed that on­ly one per­son in To­ba­go was ar­rest­ed for ex­ceed­ing the pre­scribed al­co­hol lim­it, while an­oth­er per­son was charged for fail­ing to pro­vide a breath spec­i­men.

Dur­ing his 2025/2026 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo an­nounced in­creased penal­ties for sev­er­al traf­fic of­fences, in­clud­ing dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence.

Tan­coo said DUI fines will move from $12,000 to $15,000, while penal­ties for dri­ving while dis­qual­i­fied will in­crease from $1,500 to $5,000. Fines for care­less dri­ving will al­so climb sharply, from $1,000 to $15,000.

The lat­est DUI fig­ures come amid grow­ing con­cern over al­co­hol con­sump­tion and its im­pact on road safe­ty.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health, Dr Rishad Seecha­ran, said ris­ing al­co­hol con­sump­tion in T&T is con­tribut­ing to road traf­fic in­ci­dents, as he con­tributed to a pri­vate mo­tion on the es­tab­lish­ment of an ad­e­quate na­tion­al road safe­ty sys­tem in the Low­er House yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing dur­ing the de­bate on the mo­tion, Seecha­ran point­ed to find­ings from the Min­istry of Health’s STEP sur­veys con­duct­ed in 2011 and 2024. He said the sur­veys, de­vel­oped by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion, track non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease risk fac­tors with­in the pop­u­la­tion.

“So we have an al­co­hol prob­lem here in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Seecha­ran said.

He said the da­ta showed a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline in the num­ber of peo­ple who ab­stain from al­co­hol. Ac­cord­ing to the min­is­ter, life­time ab­stain­ers among males and fe­males stood at 29.7 per cent in 2011 but fell to 15.4 per cent in 2024.

Seecha­ran al­so said the per­cent­age of peo­ple who con­sumed al­co­hol with­in the 30 days lead­ing up to the sur­vey in­creased from 40 per cent in 2011 to 51 per cent in 2024.

The min­is­ter added that binge drink­ing, de­fined as con­sum­ing six or more units of al­co­hol at a time, al­so rose sharply over the pe­ri­od re­viewed.

“In 2011, it was five per cent, Madam Deputy Speak­er. In 2024, it has in­creased to 12.7 per cent,” he said.