Over 120,000 unpaid traffic tickets

Of the 289,140 fixed penalty tickets issued during the period 2011 to 2015, over 120,000 remains unpaid.

So says, director of legal services unit at the ministry of works and transport, Marvin Gonzales as he addressed members of the media on Tuesday at a special presentation on the operationalisation of the Act at the conference room of the Office of the Prime Minister, Central Administration Services Tobago (CAST) in Orange Hill Road, Scarborough.

Gonzales said when the courts' statistics on fixed penalty ticketing system were analysed, especially as it relates to the “whole overwhelming” of the courts system and the backlog that existed there, it was quite startling.

“A significant percentage of the tickets that are issued by police officers, traffic wardens and licensing officers are not paid by motorists who were issued those tickets, and the result of that is an overwhelming number of those cases going before the courts and saturating our judicial system,” Gonzales said.

“The number of tickets paid out of the 289,140 is 172,769 and from that collection of paid tickets, the State received $171 million. So, 120,489 tickets were not paid… meaning that all the work that police officers, traffic wardens, licensing officers etc issuing fixed penalty tickets, trying to enforce the law, trying to maintain order in our society, it shows a certain level of disorder, a certain level of dysfunctionality in our society."

He stressed, “It simply means that for every unpaid ticket, it results in a live traffic case before our courts; simply put, coming out of our fixed penalty ticketing system enlisted 120,489 traffic matters.”

This, he said means that a significant amount of resources at the courts are placed in the number of traffic matters appearing before courts, mainly as a result of unpaid tickets.

Gonzales said the contributing factors to people not paying their tickets must be addressed.

“If we move into automated camera technology without addressing the problems of the fixed penalty system, the court system is going to be jeopardised because of the number of possible citations that would go before it as a result of unpaid citations,” he said adding that in most cases, there are reasons for people not paying fixed penalty tickets, which included the jurisdiction that they live and issues at the courts, amongst others.

“It may that be that persons are lawless but perhaps our systems are not modernised for persons to pay their tickets conveniently,” he said adding that in the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act, 2017 legislation to be proclaimed in January 2020 provides for convenient methods for the payment of fixed penalty tickets, called the U-Turn fixed penalty system which provides real time connectivity between the Licensing Division, the courts, the police and the transport ministry.

He said, in 2020 police will utilise mobile hand-held devices to issue tickets. The payment time frame would be extended from 14 days to 30 days, giving people a longer period to pay their tickets and they can go to any approved TTPost outlet to pay.

“No longer would they endure the inconvenience of having to go to the court in the district that the ticket was issued, they can now go to approximately 16 to 18 approved TTPost outlets to pay their fixed penalties, and in addition to that, they would now have the convenience of going online using TTPost online platform to pay their fixed penalty tickets 24 hours within the stipulated time period.”

The legislation, he said also includes a requirement for people to file a notice requesting a court hearing if the driver believes that he or she was wronged in the issuance of the ticket. However, for those not interested in paying their fixed penalty tickets, some measures will be adopted.

“If the ticket is not paid and a notice to contest is not filed within the specific timeline, after 30 days, that ticket fine is going to increase by 25 per cent with an additional 14 days to pay. If after the elapse of that 14 days, the ticket is still not paid, the fine goes up by another 25 per cent, increasing the fine to a total of 50 per cent,” he said adding that this is not new as it happens all around the world geared towards ensuring that people pay their tickets on time.

Gonzales said if this isn’t paid then, the legislation gives the Licensing Division certain administrative powers to impose administrative sanctions on the drivers.

With regards the demerit points, Gonzales said there are two distinctions; a newly licensed driver versus an experienced driver. The distinction, he said is critical.