Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan says the pro­posed laws in the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic (Amend­ment) Bill, 2019, will en­sure the tint on ve­hi­cles is prop­er­ly han­dled and not via Li­cens­ing of­fi­cer’s whim and fan­cy.

He said a trans­port of­fi­cer once told him he de­ter­mined if a tint was too dark or was ap­pro­pri­ate ac­cord­ing to whether the ve­hi­cle’s dri­ver was In­do-Trinida­di­an and Afro-Trinida­di­an.

Sinanan said he was shocked and im­me­di­ate­ly called top Trans­port brass, or­der­ing draft­ing of a new law.

“I said, this can’t con­tin­ue,” Sinanan said dur­ing de­bate on the bill at yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting.

In the bill, the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er can vary tint if a dri­ver has a health is­sue or for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons. How­ev­er, the dark­ness of tint will now be as­cer­tained by an in­stru­ment.

Sinanan said the new ra­dio fre­quen­cy (RF) ID num­ber plates will al­low for cus­tomised num­bers, earn­ing the state fund­ing. He said the chip in the RFID num­ber plates would pre­vent peo­ple from sim­ply chang­ing a num­ber plate when they steal a car. Even if they re­paint the car, the chip will lead po­lice to cul­prits. He not­ed that re­paint­ing of ve­hi­cles must al­so now be re­port­ed to the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion.

“We have over 1.1 mil­lion cars reg­is­tered, many may not be on the road. We found sev­er­al cars with the same num­ber plate. But the RFID plate sys­tem will elim­i­nate this,” he said.

Sinanan said a “sig­nif­i­cant amount” of peo­ple were pay­ing bribes at Li­cens­ing to get spe­cial li­cense num­bers. He said that’s not hap­pen­ing now since num­bers are be­ing com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed.

Fol­low­ing the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion, he said a pi­lot pro­gramme will be done on the new reg­is­tra­tion process. (GA)