RED LIGHT DEVILS: Sinanan reveals 15,000 breaches at one location

Even amid upgrades to traffic-lights to help the blind and disabled cross safely, came the disturbing news that these lights are often “broken” by speeding drivers, reporters learnt yesterday at a commissioning of lights at the corner of Wrightson Road and Dock Road, Port-of-Spain.

Some 15,000 errant drivers “broke the red light” at that location over a three-month period, said Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sinanan.

“What that indicated to us is that we have to make sure enforcement takes place,” he told Newsday.

“So it is a case for cameras.”

In addition to red-light cameras, Sinanan promised spot-speed cameras will be set up at places such as highways. Legislation to authorise spot-speed cameras will come to Parliament by the second quarter of next year, he said.

“This has been a project we’ve been working on the past couple of months and there’s a great need for it.”

Sinanan said both the red-light and spot-speed cameras will photograph speeding vehicles to allow for fines to be collected and demerit points to be incurred. Without the need for a police presence, the cameras will automatically photograph the details of speeding vehicles and drivers will then receive a ticket in the mail. “Once that whole process is allowed to work into the system, we’ll be seeing a whole lot more discipline on the roads.”

While Parliament approved the law to enact the red-light cameras a few months ago, Sinanan said his ministry has spent the past ten months trying to operationalise the system. “It’s happening. We’ve been meeting the police, Judiciary and TTPost, all stakeholders, at the ministry. We’ve got a premises and we are getting the software to be integrated with.”

Sinanan said in addition to the fine for breaking a red-light, the Motor Vehicle and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2017 also imposes a system of accrual of demerits which can lead to a driver being suspended for a given time period.

He said the red-light and spot-speed cameras each consist of different types of apparatus and will be placed at different types of locations, typically highways. There will be about 30 of each type. The existing Act says the fine for exceeding the speed limit ranges from $1,000 and no demerits (for an excess of one to nine km/h) up to $3,000 (for an excess of 31 km/h and over). The country’s speed limit increased last Friday from 80 to 100 km/h. While pleased with a recent halving of annual road-deaths over a one-year period, Sinanan expressed confidence the current measures would result in even more careful driving.

At yesterday’s commissioning, Sinanan, his staff and members of the Blind Welfare Association and the wheelchair-assisted community did a test exercise on the lights and their recent user-friendly upgrades.

Maurice McEachnie, the ministry’s traffic signal engineering supervisor, told reporters the Accessible Pedestrian Signals project upgrade had been carried out at lights at 15 locations across Trinidad (but not Tobago) at a cost of $501,000.

McEachnie explained the lights have both spoken instructions (audio guide) for crossing the road for the visually-impaired plus a bright red flashing button for the hearing-impaired.

Association CEO Kenneth Surrat, who is visually-impaired, welcomed the upgrades but also had some suggestions. “We’re happy for the initiative and it’s a good start.” Saying it is a long distance to cross, he said the time allowed to cross should be longer. Surrat also urged that a tactile road surface be laid down at the crossing so as to guide the visually-impaired. He urged that more main roads be outfitted with these traffic-light upgrades, although admitting the visually-impaired now largely rely on the general public’s goodwill to cross safely.

Welfare officer at the association Lakhan Seepersad said a tactile surface can also allow the visually-impaired to feel the vibrations created by any oncoming vehicle, as done at a crossing at Mosquito Creek.

“We’ll be making that recommendation to them.” Association chairman Patrick Romano used the occasion to make a plug to urge Parliament to pass an amendment to the Copyright Act to allow the association to translate published works into Braille, audio and large-letter format under the Marrakesh Agreement. “Only five percent of published material is available to the blind, yet they’re doing very well in schools. You could imagine if we got 20 or 30 per cent?”