T&T has record­ed a 24 per cent de­crease in road traf­fic deaths to date in 2021 com­pared with the same pe­ri­od in 2020.

This pos­i­tive down­ward trend comes as the TTPS joins with oth­er po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tions across the globe in recog­nis­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions fifth Glob­al Road Safe­ty Week, ob­served be­tween May 17, 2021 to May 21, 2021. The theme of Road Safe­ty Week 2021 is “Speed Man­age­ment.”

Ac­cord­ing to col­li­sion re­search by the Traf­fic Branch Road­way Sur­veil­lance Unit, it is es­ti­mat­ed ex­ces­sive speed con­tributes to be­tween 55 to 60 per cent of fa­tal road traf­fic col­li­sions in T&T and the of­fence con­tin­ues to be one of the most tick­et­ed vi­o­la­tions in traf­fic en­force­ment op­er­a­tions with 8,006 speed­ing tick­ets be­ing is­sued to mo­torists al­ready for the year, of which 69 per cent were is­sued by High­way Pa­trol Units.

In a state­ment, the TTPS re­mind­ed dri­vers that un­der the amend­ed Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act Chap­ter 48:50, Sec­tion 62(1), fines and de­mer­it points as­so­ci­at­ed with speed lim­it vi­o­la­tions are tiered to how much a dri­ver is de­tect­ed ex­ceed­ing the road­way speed lim­it.

• 1-9 kmh over — $1,000 and 0 de­mer­it points

• 10-20 kmh — $1,500 and two de­mer­it points

• 21-30 kmh — $2,000 and four de­mer­it points

• 31 kmh and over — $3,000 and six de­mer­it points

The TTPS said it will be part­ner­ing with road safe­ty NGO, Ar­rive Alive, to use so­cial me­dia to raise the aware­ness of the UN Road Safe­ty Week and ad­vised the pub­lic “to obey all speed lim­its as po­lice of­fi­cers will be out on the road­ways en­sur­ing dri­vers com­ply with road traf­fic and COVID-19 Reg­u­la­tions.