Sto­ries by Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

As 20 new radar speed guns have been added to the TTPS law en­force­ment ar­se­nal, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says he is op­ti­mistic the de­vices will sig­nif­i­cant­ly as­sist po­lice in tack­ling reck­less dri­vers.

How­ev­er, Gue­var­ro re­mind­ed mo­torists that even with en­hanced po­lice cov­er­age and ca­pa­bil­i­ties, leav­ing the scene of an ac­ci­dent could lead to crim­i­nal charges, par­tic­u­lar­ly in cas­es where some­one has been in­jured or killed.

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter a han­dover cer­e­mo­ny for the Li­DAR Speed En­force­ment de­vices to the Traf­fic and High­way Pa­trol Branch at the Fore­shore on the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way yes­ter­day, Gue­var­ro ad­dressed re­cent in­ci­dents in­volv­ing se­ri­ous road traf­fic ac­ci­dents.

On Sun­day morn­ing, po­lice said a black Hyundai Elantra was in­volved in a crash along the north­bound lane of the Uri­ah But­ler High­way near Guaya­mare, where a man iden­ti­fied as Jor­dan Franklyn was killed.

Hours lat­er, Cur­tis Forbes was in­jured af­ter be­ing struck by a dri­ver along the East­ern Main Road while par­tic­i­pat­ing in a marathon.

On Mon­day morn­ing, 74-year-old Ephram Mary Per­reira of San­ta Cruz was struck and killed by the dri­ver of a Toy­ota Hilux. The dri­ver re­port­ed­ly stopped to ren­der as­sis­tance and re­port the in­ci­dent, but was cau­tioned by po­lice re­gard­ing pos­si­ble pros­e­cu­tion.

Apart from the le­gal oblig­a­tion to re­main at the scene of an ac­ci­dent, Gue­var­ro urged dri­vers to show com­pas­sion and hu­man­i­ty by stop­ping to as­sist per­sons suf­fer­ing po­ten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing in­juries.

“Do not take mat­ters in­to your own hands and say, ‘No­body ain’t see me,’ and just dri­ve off,” Gue­var­ro said.

“Stop, ren­der aid and call the po­lice.”

He al­so urged mo­torists to con­sid­er how they would feel if a loved one was left in­jured on the road­way af­ter a col­li­sion.

Dur­ing his ad­dress, Gue­var­ro said the new radar speed guns would al­low of­fi­cers to de­tect speed­ing ve­hi­cles from greater dis­tances, con­duct speed ex­er­cis­es at night and view li­cence plates with greater clar­i­ty.

Com­ment­ing on the lim­i­ta­tions of old­er tech­nol­o­gy, which of­ten re­quired of­fi­cers to stand close to road­ways to mea­sure the speed of pass­ing ve­hi­cles, Gue­var­ro said the up­grad­ed equip­ment would pre­serve the el­e­ment of sur­prise.

“We can now de­tect speed­ing at night and we have less of a foot­print when car­ry­ing out de­tec­tion ex­er­cis­es. Gone are the days when you see po­lice ve­hi­cles parked in ob­vi­ous lo­ca­tions,” he said.

“I saw some very hu­mor­ous so­cial me­dia memes with po­lice hid­ing in bush­es to catch peo­ple speed­ing. Tech­nol­o­gy has tak­en over and we are now em­brac­ing that tech­nol­o­gy to bring road safe­ty to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

With­out dis­clos­ing ex­act fig­ures, Gue­var­ro al­so re­port­ed that fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents had de­creased by 43 per cent so far this year when com­pared with the same pe­ri­od last year.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, TTPS Road Safe­ty Co-or­di­na­tor Sgt Brent Bat­son al­so urged mo­torists to obey the speed lim­it.

Re­flect­ing on the range of ex­cus­es of­ten giv­en by speed­ing dri­vers, Bat­son said of­fi­cers re­main will­ing to as­sist in gen­uine emer­gen­cies but would con­tin­ue tak­ing a firm stance against reck­less dri­ving.

“We hear every­thing from, ‘Of­fi­cer, I need to use the toi­let,’ to ‘Of­fi­cer, I’m late for work,’ and we have to re­mind them that none of that gives them the right to put oth­er peo­ple’s lives at risk,” Bat­son said.

“One thing we con­tin­u­ous­ly hear is that some­one is sick, or the dri­ver is sick, but when we of­fer to es­cort them to the hos­pi­tal or call an am­bu­lance, sud­den­ly they are not so sick any­more.”

Al­so at­tend­ing the han­dover cer­e­mo­ny was Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Eli Za­k­our, who said the de­vices formed part of the Gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing ef­forts to im­prove road safe­ty.

“Road safe­ty is not just about laws on pa­per. It is about ef­fec­tive en­force­ment, pub­lic aware­ness, safer in­fra­struc­ture and in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Za­k­our said.