Police: 300% increase in Tobago road deaths

TO DATE, over 100 tickets have been issued for traffic violations in road-traffic enforcement exercises ongoing across Tobago.

Pamphlets with road-safety tips for the public will continue to be distributed during the series of exercises.

Speaking during an operational brief before an exercise by the TT Police Service (TTPS) and the Licensing Authority last Friday at the Licensing Office in Milshirv, Transport Commissioner Clive Clarke said if he were to give the operation a name, it would be Operation Saving Lives.

“That is what we are about here in Tobago – to save lives and to promote safety. In so doing, we are using a two-fold approach."

One aspect was "taking the opportunity to inform the public or educate the public by providing certain literature we think is of value.”

That, he said, had to do with safety in terms of the roads and members of the public familiarising themselves with the new fixed-penalty system.

He said the participants arrived in Tobago on Wednesday and would be there for a week. They started work at 8 am on Thursday by offering the infomation to the public.

He commented, "We are encountering a number of persons above the demerit points threshold. We have situations where persons are driving with 12 – we met one with 27." He said the officials were dealing with those cases according to the law as permitted when people continued to drive with so many demerit points, bearing in mind that their behaviour was "not healthy for other drivers on the nation’s road.”

He said they had seen a large humber of defective vehicles and drivers without valid insurance or permits, and even one person with a permit that expired in 2010.

He said his preference would have been to come to Tobago and issue no tickets, but on day one of the exercise, 190 tickets were issued.

“I cannot glory in that. I wish we would have just issued zero, and we hope that we don’t have to issue any more.”

He said he is encouraging drivers to get their vehicles inspected, while he is aware there are some challenges with the system.

Police road safety co-ordinator Sgt Brent Batson said under strategic plan number two on road safety, police commissioner Erla Christopher had instructed police to join the Licensing Division in the exercise.

“Mainly because from what the data has shown us, Tobago has a 300 per cent increase of road deaths over last year, and that is unacceptable on every level. All four of these road deaths were very preventable – two had to do with seatbelt use, the other two had to do with speed, and of course one of them is a DUI (driving under the influence).”

These tragedies, he said, could be prevented if people obeyed road traffic regulations.

He warned, “We wish to afford the opportunity for the public to please know that we are present, to please have their documents in order – understand that yes, we’re also here to educate, but there are certain things we can’t let slide, because our job is enforcement.”

Having been disqualified from driving, he said is one of the most serious traffic offences under the Road Traffic Act, and being caught doing so triggers an immediate arrest without warrant.

He said the police are partnering with road safety stakeholders Arrive Alive, who had provided road safety information booklets to be handed out to educate drivers as well as other stakeholders on road use.