SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s plan to scrap the de­mer­it points sys­tem (DPS) could re­sult in loss­es of mil­lions of dol­lars in rev­enue when her new gov­ern­ment, is al­ready grap­pling with a pro­ject­ed $11 bil­lion deficit for this fis­cal year.

The DPS, in op­er­a­tion for the past five years, gen­er­at­ed al­most $300 mil­lion in rev­enue be­tween 2020 and 2024, ac­cord­ing to fig­ures in the Min­istry of Fi­nance’s es­ti­mates of rev­enue doc­u­ments.

For fis­cal 2025, the fixed penal­ty traf­fic tick­et­ing sys­tem is ex­pect­ed to rake in $100 mil­lion.

At a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the scrap­ping of the DPS, prompt­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to warn dri­vers that they will con­tin­ue to is­sue tick­ets, in­clu­sive of de­mer­it points.

In­tro­duced by the for­mer gov­ern­ment in May 2020, the DPS car­ries pre­scribed points for traf­fic of­fences and vi­o­la­tions. The points range from two to 14.

Un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act, any­one who ac­cu­mu­lates ten to 14 points with­in three years will be dis­qual­i­fied from hold­ing or ob­tain­ing a li­cence for six months.

In 2022, the DPS was mod­i­fied with points on­ly de­duct­ed for fail­ure to pro­duce a ve­hi­cle for in­spec­tion/dri­ving a ve­hi­cle with­out a valid in­spec­tion stick­er and cer­tifi­cate (six points) and park­ing in a pub­lic stand ap­point­ed for taxi (three points).

For­mer works and trans­port min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the DPS was not in­tend­ed to pe­nalise dri­vers and earn rev­enue, but to change the cul­ture of way­ward dri­ving.

In April, Sinanan said there were plans to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion so that dri­vers’ li­cences would not be sus­pend­ed when too many de­mer­it points are ac­cu­mu­lat­ed. In­stead, er­rant dri­vers would have to pass a re­fresh­er course.

He ad­mit­ted that there had been com­plaints about the sys­tem.

In 2022, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers is­sued 95,350 dri­vers fixed penal­ty no­tices or tick­ets com­pared to the 84,458 mo­torists tick­et­ed in 2021. On­ly 51,651 of the 95,350 delin­quent dri­vers had paid their tick­ets by Jan­u­ary 10, 2023.

Of the 43,699 dri­vers with out­stand­ing tick­ets to be paid, 6,651 had con­test­ed the penal­ty.

Da­ta showed that 19,244 dri­vers were tick­et­ed for fail­ure of a dri­ver and any pas­sen­ger 17 years and over to wear a seat belt while the ve­hi­cle was in mo­tion. A $1,000 fine is the penal­ty for this road vi­o­la­tion.

Al­so, 360 mo­torists were dis­qual­i­fied and 3,392 were caught us­ing the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route with­out an au­tho­rised pass.

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke pro­vid­ed the da­ta.

Mar­vin Gon­za­les, who was in­stru­men­tal in set­ting up the DPS when he was di­rec­tor of le­gal ser­vices in the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, said the UNC Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to scrap the DPS is not “ground­ed in re­search or in­for­ma­tion but pri­mar­i­ly on be­ing po­lit­i­cal­ly pop­u­lar.”

He said it was a ret­ro­grade step for road safe­ty which could fu­el oth­er types of se­ri­ous crimes and crim­i­nal­i­ty.

“It is un­be­liev­able that a crit­i­cal piece of road safe­ty pro­gramme that was put in place to save the lives of cit­i­zens and ease the trau­ma on fam­i­lies is now be­ing seen as some puni­tive mea­sure by the state. This is all about pol­i­tics and not about good or­der for the gen­er­al good,” said Gon­za­les, the MP for Arou­ca/Lopinot MP.

How­ev­er, he had no is­sue with the DPS be­ing re-ex­am­ined.

“That has al­ways been the in­ten­tion but to gut the en­tire sys­tem is noth­ing but ir­re­spon­si­ble and reck­less. I pray that our roads are made safer there­after and that lives are not lost be­cause of ir­re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour,” he said.

Gon­za­les, who in­sist­ed that the DPS was nev­er a rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing mea­sure, added: “What one has to look at is the trau­ma fam­i­lies go through when their loved one dies in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent or is left paral­ysed or bedrid­den due to a reck­less dri­ver.

“A lot of fam­i­lies in this coun­try have suf­fered, have lost their means of earn­ing an in­come and putting food on their ta­ble be­cause of road ac­ci­dents.”

It bur­dens the health­care sys­tem and the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry, he said.

“What about peo­ple who now have to re­ly on the state for dis­abil­i­ty grants and oth­er so­cial as­sis­tance be­cause they’ve lost their abil­i­ty to earn a liv­ing? See who is wicked? Is it the pol­i­cy­mak­ers who put the sys­tem in place to save lives or those who seek to re­move it?” Gon­za­les asked.

How­ev­er, for­mer works and trans­port min­is­ter Jack Warn­er de­scribed the scrap­ping of the DPS by Per­sad-Bisses­sar as “one of the great­est moves she has ever made.”

Warn­er said the DPS was bru­tal to the poor man and many maxi taxi and taxi dri­vers could not earn a liv­ing be­cause of its op­pres­sive mea­sures.

“They were harsh. They were a rev­enue stream for the gov­ern­ment. It was de­signed to make mon­ey through the bus route, and that was wrong,” he said, adding that there was no em­pir­i­cal da­ta to sug­gest the DPS caused few­er ac­ci­dents or road fa­tal­i­ties.

He sug­gest­ed that to deal with delin­quent dri­vers there should be more po­lice of­fi­cers on the roads.

“Where are the 100 mo­tor­cy­cles the po­lice re­ceive from Chi­na? How many of them do you see on the na­tion’s roads? Why is it af­ter 4 pm, you can’t see po­lice of­fi­cers on the roads? They have an 8 to 4 shift, so to speak. More po­lice would be the an­swer, but I don’t think the de­mer­it point sys­tem is,” Warn­er said.

Leg and liveli­hood lost to ac­ci­dent (Side­bar sto­ry)

On Sep­tem­ber 16, 2012, Maris­sa Gar­cia-Goodridge, 42, was cross­ing the road when she was hit by a speed­ing 12-seater maxi taxi that ran a red light at Five Rivers Junc­tion, Arou­ca.

She lost her right leg and liveli­hood as a re­sult of that ac­ci­dent.

Gar­cia-Goodridgee is one of dozens of ac­ci­dent sur­vivors who de­pend on state sup­port to eke out a liv­ing. Over the last decade, she has re­ceived $240,000 in dis­abil­i­ty grants from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment.

The moth­er of two col­lects a $2,000 dis­abil­i­ty grant every month and for two years, she al­so got a $450 food card.

The min­istry al­so promised to give her a $40,000 pros­thet­ic leg.

To date, the state has spent al­most $300,000 in grants on Gar­cia-Goodridge since her leg was am­pu­tat­ed. Costs were al­so in­curred for the sev­en weeks she was ward­ed at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

“It has been 13 years of hell,” the Diego Mar­tin res­i­dent said.

“I suf­fered mul­ti­ple in­juries, lost my leg, and life sav­ings and the dri­ver of the maxi taxi got off scot-free.”

Gar­cia-Goodridge still suf­fers from emo­tion­al dis­tress, anx­i­ety, night­mares, and de­pres­sion.

“I can’t stop think­ing about how my life was to what it has be­come,” she said.

Be­fore the ac­ci­dent, Gar­cia-Goodridge held down two jobs.

“Things were look­ing up for me but all that changed when I was run over by a dri­ver who broke the red light.”

Gar­cia-Goodridge suf­fered in­juries to her right leg, col­lar­bone, shoul­der, ribs, hip, and kid­ney.

“Be­tween my right knee and an­kle was bro­ken in over 21 places, where I had to go through full bone re­con­struc­tive surgery with steel, pins and wire ties were placed in the foot to try and save it,” she re­vealed.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, that did not hap­pen be­cause I end­ed up de­vel­op­ing a se­vere bone in­fec­tion that turned in­to can­cer, and I lost the leg sev­en years ago.”

Gar­cia-Goodridge spent $220,000 on surg­eries, med­ica­tion and ther­a­py to save her leg.

“To say I was left fi­nan­cial­ly strapped is an un­der­state­ment,” she said.

To make mat­ters worse, the dri­ver, who was not the own­er of the maxi taxi, was nev­er charged for break­ing the law.

Days af­ter the in­ci­dent, the maxi taxi was re­moved from the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion and tak­en to a garage for re­pairs.

“I was fight­ing for my life in the hos­pi­tal, and the maxi-taxi was at a me­chan­ic be­ing re­paired,” she said.

Gar­cia-Goodridge is not in favour of the DPS be­ing scrapped al­though she agrees that de­mer­it points should be re­moved from some traf­fic vi­o­la­tions so that dri­vers don’t have their li­cences re­voked.

Not­ing that one of the ben­e­fits of the DPS is rev­enue, she point­ed out: “That mon­ey has been as­sist­ing our health­care sys­tem and the Min­istry of So­cial Wel­fare to help sur­vivors like me.”