Ministry cracking down on overweight, extra-large trucks

The Ministry of Works and Transport intends to crack down on all overweight and extra-large trucks on the roads.

Addressing the nine members of the newly constituted National Road Safety Council during the distribution of instruments of appointment on Monday, at the ministry in Port of Spain, the minister Rohan Sinanan told the members they should get to work immediately, as this is one matter he wanted dealt with urgently.

Overweight and extra-large trucks, Sinanan said, continue to cause some damage. He said he needs to meet with the board to ensure they fully utilise the new electronic scanning technology to get into the system to identify some of the overweight and extra-large trucks on the road.

“Overweight trucks damage the road network, and trucks that are not licensed for certain routes. The reason why they’re not licensed for certain routes is because those routes were never designed for that size of trucks. I am hoping that they can use the technology that they’re using now to identify vehicles that were not inspected, vehicles that should not be on the road. We could use that on the roads so when officers see a truck operating on a road, they can check to see if that truck was licensed for that route.”

He said a lot of roads in Trinidad are too narrow.

“If we have an 18-wheeler truck coming around the corner on that road, it has to go on the opposite side and that puts people at risk.”

He said no matter how many legislative changes the government puts in place, safety is also a personal responsibility.

“Everyone has to play their part. We really need that buy-in from the public because road safety can’t be just a governmental or national security aspect of it, it has to be a buy-in where everyone understands their responsibility.”

Chairman of the council Sonia Francis-Yearwood, who is also the ministry's permanent secretary, putting into context the reconstitution of the council and the critical importance of its operations, said road traffic injuries are categorised as a global health issue by the World Health Organization (WHO).

She said the 2021 global status report on road safety estimates that more than 1.2 million people are killed yearly, with over 20-50 million injured, and outside the anomalies caused by war, it is said to be the leading killer of children and young people worldwide.

She said, in TT the ministry is working with the relevant stakeholders to ensure safety on the roads. These initiatives, she said, have borne fruit with TT being the only English-speaking country in the region to have achieved the target of a 50 per cent reduction in road fatalities over the first decade of action 2011-2020.

She said as the country moves into the second decade of action, it is recognised that there is still substantial sustained work to be done.

“One of the initiatives required to ensure this, is the reconstitution of the TT National Road Safety Council, which will be seen as the lead council as prescribed by the WHO for the development, implementation and monitoring of plans in the area of road safety.”

The council, she said, has seven focus areas, which include being the overarching body responsible for co-ordination with inter-agency and multi-sector stakeholders with a shared goal for reducing road-traffic-related incidents, as well as to manage its own budget, headquarters, personnel, vehicles and necessary equipment.

Additionally, they would guide other inter-governmental agencies where matters of road and transportation safety arise, as well as evidence on legislative issues, technology developments and industry standards or best practices.

They would also set quantitative road safety targets for the country and finalise the National Road Safety Plan for TT 2020-2030.

She said, at the ministry level the reconstitution of this council is another step in the drive to institutionalise systems to bring about a safer environment for drivers, passengers and pedestrians. The other members of the council are Clive Clarke, Petal Alexander, Adande Piggott, Dr Roshan Parasram, Collis Hazel, Peter Griffith, David Bartholomew and Vedwattie Baran-Garcia.